The Ministry of Ecological Transition and Energy of the Government of the Canary Islands, led by Mariano H. Zapata (PP), has declared of general interest the installation of a photovoltaic plant in Mácher (Tías) on a plot of rural land for agricultural protection, despite the opposition of the City Council, the Cabildo of Lanzarote, and the local population.
The area of the Canary Government has decided to apply article 6 bis of Law 11/1997 again in Mácher, which regulates the Canary electricity sector, and which allows projects to be "subject to a special regime" without the need to obtain a building permit or "any other municipal or insular preventive control act". The application of this article for another renewables project a year and a half ago forced Transición Energética to back down and let the procedure expire.
On this occasion, it is the project Photovoltaic Solar Installation Tías I, which had already been made public on January 20, 2025, in the Official State Gazette and which had forced the council to publicly express its rejection. This private initiative, promoted by the Madrid-based company RS Iberia 23, SL, headquartered on Paseo de la Castellana, received the approval of the Canary Ministry on May 15 for it to be declared of insular interest.
The project plans to install 1,680 solar panels, a transformation center, and expropriate 36 plots of land. The initiative would occupy 24,117 square meters of a total area of 28,721.
The Tías City Council, as well as the Cabildo of Lanzarote, have one month to express their position regarding this declaration of general interest. Then, the Ministry of Ecological Transition will have to decide whether or not to continue with the procedure.
The council led by Juan Cruz Saavedra (PSOE) has shown in a document sent this Thursday to the Ministry of Ecological Transition its "total opposition and express disagreement" to the declaration of general interest of the works to give the green light to this project on rural land. Meanwhile, the Cabildo of Lanzarote, which had denied in a statement that article 6 bis had been applied, has assured that it will also present allegations against the installation of solar panels.
The Tías City Council, relying on a technical report by a municipal architect, which had already been sent to the Ministry in March 2025 during the ordinary procedure, recalls that the General Urban Planning Plan of Tías "expressly prohibits energy use" in this category of land.
This municipal report indicates that using Article 6 bis of Law 11/1997 "cannot be used to arbitrarily legalize prohibited land uses" that Canarian laws protect for their significant value to the primary sector.
Furthermore, it reveals that the landscape impact of this project in Mácher is "unacceptable" and that it would involve "an irreversible alteration of the traditional landscape of Lanzarote."
The document sent by the council to the Area directed by Mariano H. Zapata states that the project had already been rejected and that the current proposal "is identical" to the one that was denied, therefore it argues that "urgency cannot be invoked as a mechanism to evade the finality of municipal administrative acts."
Faced with the initiative, the Tías City Council also warns that it "does not guarantee the maintenance of the operability of pre-existing public infrastructures," that it has "substantial defects in documentation and technical safety," and that it also generates "a strong social rejection."
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