The energy community 'El Sol de La Graciosa' has submitted its application to the European Commission's 'Clean Energy for EU islands' call, to receive technical assistance and achieve 100% renewable energy operation by 2030.
The eighth Canary Island seeks to be chosen among "thirty European islands to receive technical assistance" to become the first island in the Canary Islands and Spain with 100% of the energy supply coming from clean and renewable energy, the community reported in a statement.
The energy community 'El sol de La Graciosa' was born in May 2023 promoted by a score of residents in La Graciosa with a firm perspective of "energy, environmental care, and self-generation and distribution of clean energy from the island itself, for a more optimal and community use for the benefit of the graciosera population".
The island, with a population of just over 720 people, annually multiplies by 800 the number of visitors compared to its resident population, which, according to this community, "systematically overwhelms the capacity to respond to the demand for energy and water, the management of solid waste and land, marine and atmospheric pollution by the use of land and sea vehicles of fossil combustion".
Currently, 100% of the water and energy consumed by La Graciosa is generated in Lanzarote, in 81% burning fuel in a thermal power plant powered by fossil fuels located in Arrecife. The president of 'El Sol de La Graciosa', Nahum Cabrera, has stated that this "dantesque scenario of burning fossil fuel" is "completely unfeasible from the environmental, economic and human perspective".
The same idea has been underlined by the spokesperson of the association, Ginés Díaz, who has expressed that this is an "essential journey" because "it will be a fundamental task to ensure that the Canary Islands institutions urgently adapt the regulatory framework so that environmental conservation and the custody of the island is in line with the legitimate right of the population to its full socio-economic and sustainable development and whose activities can be duly accommodated in the legal framework".
The call for applications opened on June 8 and culminated on October 6, 2023 and during this period the association has worked "profusely to define the dynamics of the project and gather institutional support from private and public entities" of the Canary Islands.
