SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Feb. 16 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The central government is going to allocate just over 466 million euros to the Canary Islands to deploy the Sustainable Energy Strategy, with funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
The agreement was presented this Wednesday to the media by the Canarian President, Ángel Víctor Torres, and the Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, who have insisted that these resources are an “opportunity” to open islands to the green transformation.
The funds will have to be executed until 2026, they will generate an economic impact close to 900 million and 80 percent will be managed by the Canarian Government and the rest by the Institute
for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE), dependent on the Ministry.
Torres has detailed that there will be 116 million for solar and photovoltaic energy; 93 million for renewable energy in energy communities and another 93 million to decarbonize industrial land; 60 million to boost wind farms; 35 million for the promotion of the electric vehicle; 46 million for the development of green hydrogen and offshore wind power and 11 million for outreach activities among citizens.
He has guaranteed that the Government is going to “invest everything” until 2026 because the energy change in the islands is “indispensable” and has the support and sensitivity of the central government when before there were others who “put a tax on the sun”.
The Canarian president has also said that this strategy is combined with the new climate change law, already in parliament, the construction of the Chira-Soria plant or the dismantling of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife refinery.
In addition, he has highlighted that the objective is that in 2030, the energy mix of the islands has 60% clean energy.
Ribera has said that the Canary Islands “have everything to make the leap” towards a green economy but “the vision and political capacity were needed” to face this “challenge” since the islands “are in the top ten” in terms of biodiversity and their protection must be compatible with new forms of energy.
He stressed that the archipelago has an “international energy dimension” thanks to the Gorona del Viento plant in El Hierro and Plocan, which has become a “test laboratory” for the development of offshore wind power.
The minister has valued the “enormous potential” that the strategy has for the generation of employment and maintains that it will multiply self-consumption by ten, so she hopes to transfer the funds “as soon as possible”.
OFF SHORE ENERGY: THE CANARY ISLANDS IS “EL DORADO”, SAYS RIBERA
He has also pointed out that the green transformation is based on a “very important change in citizen demand”, which he understands that “there can be no progress” if natural resources continue to be wasted and this decade will be the “most revolutionary” in energy production world.
“Everything is not easy or automatic, there are difficulties to overcome, but I am optimistic, I see the determination of the young people who are not going to forgive us for not being up to the task”, he pointed out.
Regarding offshore wind energy, he said that it will be implemented “very soon” in the Canary Islands, although not “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow” either, but he made it clear that the islands are “golden” thanks to the push of the trade winds that make them “in the radar” of the world’s leading developers.
Thus, he pointed out that “the challenge is to do it well”, respecting marine biodiversity or bird corridors, while stressing that Plocan has become a “reference” for testing capital goods and technologies. “It’s not a coincidence,” she indicated.
Ribera has also commented that this industry is a business opportunity for Spanish shipyards and has commented that the objective is to search for the most suitable projects and put the plots in the public domain out to tender.
