Clavijo's energy traps and lies

March 11 2019 (09:04 WET)

The Government of the Canary Islands has been deceiving the Canarian population on energy issues for years.

We must expose their traps and lies. The population has to be empowered

If renewable energy sources are free, why do we allow them to take over and electric oligopolies to enrich themselves at our expense? We have to be the owners of our meters.

Do we find it acceptable that, after 27 years of CC governing these Islands, we do not have an Energy Plan for the Canary Islands? If the Government does not make decisions in this matter, who is making them? Well, the oligopoly that controls the electricity market in the Canary Islands: the Italian multinational EON (formerly Endesa-Unelco) and the one that transports the energy, Red Eléctrica Española (REE).

The wildest possibility of the market occurs in the Canary Islands in terms of energy. They set rules, requirements and prices, at the State level and on the islands.

They cook it up and eat it up, with the help of CC and all at the expense of our pockets.

How could the Government explain to us that it has subsidized about thirty low and medium enthalpy geothermal projects to hotels and shopping centers, so that their owners save up to 25 percent of the electricity bill and, however, no installation has been made in the hundreds of public buildings in the Canary Islands to reduce said electricity bill and pass this saving on, for example, to social policies? The electricity bill of a hotel is equivalent to the costs of its staff, approximately.

They tell us that we are in a period of transition from fossil fuels to renewables. In the Canary Islands we do not produce electricity with coal, nor with nuclear energy and, therefore, we do not need to replace them with another fossil energy such as gas.

And yet, Clavijo and his partners, continue to be determined to remain in the Age of Fire, trying to install 3,000 km of pipes for us.

José María Marín, president of the National Commission of Markets and Competition, a few days ago, in the Congress of Deputies, denied the possibility of installing gas in the Canary Islands because it was deficient. And he was not willing to load it on the toll of peninsular gas consumers, as the unsympathetic Minister of Industry, Pedro Ortega, intends.

The current model, whether with fossil fuels or with renewables, is a model where energy is produced in a concentrated way in a few points, owned by oligopolies, whether they are fuel engines, wind turbines or photovoltaic panels.

They are the owners of our meters and, therefore, they set the conditions for governments and consumers. A graphic example: the island of La Palma, a banana island par excellence, pays as much money in electricity bills as the money that enters the island from the sale of bananas.

In the specific case of water and energy, we have to bet that this binomial is inextricably linked to renewable energies.

Extracting, desalinating, purifying, transporting, purifying and reusing water has to be done with renewable energies. We cannot allow the Island Water Councils and the organizations of farmers and irrigation communities to be the main clients of the electric oligopoly in the Canary Islands.

We are witnessing an exponential, subsidized growth of wind and photovoltaic energy, in electrical systems that, like that of the island of Tenerife (although something similar occurs in Gran Canaria), the minimum demand is around 270 Mw in off-peak hours and the maximum demand is around 530 MW. 

However, at this time, the installed wind power in Arico and Chimiche reaches 505 MW and the photovoltaic power planned in the ITER is 350 MW, a system electrical oversized. And, in addition, we must take into account that between 8 percent and 10 percent of the energy transported is lost along the way.

The measures to continue concentrating the production of energy in a few hands, installing wind turbines galore on rustic land, have been facilitated by the Land Law, a priority of the Clavijo government in this legislature.

The wind power injected into the grid during the current year does not reach 9 percent and, however, the Government has no qualms in talking to us about a production of 20 percent.

They lie to us and don't even blush.

The Canary Islands has plenty of untapped renewable energy: sun, wind, seas, volcanoes.

Sun and wind on all our roofs. Seas that surround more than 7,000 kilometers of coastline, with multiple currents. Possibilities of high enthalpy Geothermal energy to apply it to Tenerife, La Palma, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and its connection with Fuerteventura.

High temperature geothermal energy is the jewel in the crown in terms of energy, lasting for the next centuries. A very profitable investment, of public ownership, that would make us energetically sovereign in the mix of renewables, as the authentic backup energy, when the others fail or there is not enough accumulated energy.

That is why from Podemos Canarias we are committed to a new energy model, in which consumers can be producers and even pour the surplus into the grid.

A model where, since there are no long transports, there are no losses. A model, where through photovoltaics, which should be subsidized, or through the use of low and medium enthalpy geothermal energy, we can satisfy our energy demand, democratize the ownership of energy sources and, ultimately, be owners of our meters.

The Government's lies have short legs.

Distributed generation renewables are our goal to conquer as a society.

The fight for the ownership of the meters is unequal. But we are the majority, we have the time and the reason on our side.

And we are moving firmly in the right direction.

 

Manuel Marrero Morales

Deputy of the Parliamentary Group Podemos Canarias

Candidate for Tenerife of Podemos Canarias to the Parliament

Most read