The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, during a meeting this week in Madrid with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, and with the Commissioner for the Promotion of Renewable Energy in Island Systems, Marc Pons, highlighted the importance of the Sustainable Energy Strategy, which has provided the Canary Islands with 466 million euros to finance clean energy projects. As he stressed, "the deadlines are being met and it is expected that there will be calls that will be released in this same 2022".
In this line, the head of the autonomous Executive recalled that, upon arriving at the Government, "there were less than 200 photovoltaic self-consumption installations in the Islands, while now we have more than 5,000, with which we have multiplied the megawatts in a spectacular way", going from 9 MW in 2019 to the current 59 MW. In his opinion, this confirms the clear commitment of the progressive Government to sustainability, "because we decreed the climate emergency as soon as we arrived, we will approve the Canary Islands Climate Change Law before the end of this year and we have obtained the largest economic contributions for clean energy in our islands, which also have the best conditions to take advantage of it".
Much remains to be done
However, according to the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF), the majority sector association of solar energy in Spain, which met in the Canary Islands a week ago, highlighted "the need to step on the accelerator for the energy transition in the Canary Islands, where only 20% of the energy comes from renewable sources".
The solar energy employers' association made particular emphasis on the need to solve the "exceptional situation of Lanzarote where the generation of renewable energy does not reach even 10% of the total".
