The Spanish government has announced a comprehensive plan to promote renewable investment in the Canary Islands in order to accelerate the energy transition.

Last week a joint presentation ceremony took place between the Spanish Government and the Government of the Canary Islands where both public institutions unveiled the so-called Sustainable Energy Strategy in the Canary Islands. This roadmap, presented by Teresa Ribera, Vice-President of the Government and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), consists of a renewable investment portfolio in the Canary Islands that would amount to 467 million euros from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. Funds that would support a strategy to accelerate the change to an energy model based on energy efficiency, the use of renewable energies and sustainable mobility; together with the introduction of new technologies such as electric storage or renewable hydrogen. All of this within a time horizon set over the next four years.

According to what they explained, investment in renewable energies in the Canary Islands would amount to a total of more than 800 million euros, including public and private funds. This would allow the islands to double their current renewable energy capacity – with a tenfold increase in self-consumption – as well as to adapt the territory to the new reality of electric mobility as a hallmark of the islands.

The roadmap has been devised by the Government of the Canary Islands, which, with contributions from MITECO, has set a timetable for reaching milestones and objectives, and the proposal and execution of projects, derived from the so-called Islands Plan, included in Reform 7, Investment 2, of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which in turn allocates 700 million euros to promote the decarbonisation of the economy in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands; the former being allocated two thirds of the resources (the aforementioned 467 million euros) for demographic reasons. Finally, 80% of the funds will be implemented by the Canary Islands Government, while the remaining 20% will be managed by the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE in Spanish).

For the deployment of investment in renewable energies in the Canary Islands, a strategy with seven main axes will be taken into account: energy self-sufficiency of public administrations, shared self-consumption and energy communities, the industrial sector, renewable energies integrated into the territory, sustainable mobility and the dynamisation of the energy transition.

Do you want to know more? Check HERE the press release issued by MITECO