SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 26 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Minister of Ecological Transition of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Antonio Valbuena, stated this Tuesday that the sanction imposed on E-Distribución Redes Digitales, SLU, and Unión Eléctrica de Canarias Generación, SAU, both belonging to Endesa, for 16 million euros as a result of the ‘energy zero’ that occurred in Tenerife in July 2020.
In response to a question from the Socialist Group in the control session, he said that the assessment has been made based on what is established by the electricity law, underlining that the sanctioning file shows that the law “is applied in the Canary Islands”, although he has the “spirit ” that “hopefully” it will not be activated again.
He has admitted that “it is never pleasant” to account for a sanctioning file, but he does not hide that the Canary Islands have a “very weak and very fragile” electrical system and these types of episodes can happen, so “there is no other remedy” than to sanction.
The counselor has also highlighted the “objectivity and diligence” of the officials of his department because there was an initial sanction proposal for Red Eléctrica (REE) that was finally rejected with the presentation of reports and allegations.
Yolanda Mendoza (PSOE) has commented that a ‘zero energy’ “is a bewilderment” and generates “confusion” in the population, since it generates “chaos” with the traffic lights and on the tram and “uncertainty” for businesses, homes and companies
In his opinion, a case of these characteristics, with the precedent of another similar one in 2019, “cannot be repeated” since it also generates “image damage” to the island for not being able to provide service to tourists.
