The Government of the Canary Islands has recently announced important advances in renewable energy generation in the archipelago. In a joint press conference, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning, José Antonio Valbuena, and the Regional Director of Energy, Rosana Melián, presented the most updated data on renewable generation in the islands.
Currently, the Canary Islands have more than 9,500 photovoltaic self-consumption installations totaling a power of 86 megawatts (MW), which implies a growth of almost nine times compared to the data of September 2019, when only 9.3 MW were counted in just 400 installations.
In the first three months of 2023, 20 new installations per day have been registered, which reflects the growing interest on the part of the Canary Islands population in this type of infrastructure that allows energy self-sufficiency of companies and households in the islands. In addition, according to Valbuena, the archipelago is only 55 megawatts away from reaching the gigawatt of installed renewable power, which would mean approaching 30% of generation.
Tenerife has been the island that has experienced the greatest growth, going from 155 installations in 2019 to 3,774 in March 2023. Gran Canaria has also achieved an important milestone, starting in 2019 with 230 installations and reaching 3,277 today. As for the other islands, Lanzarote has surpassed 840 installations, Fuerteventura has evolved from 43 to 924 installations, La Palma has gone from 46 to 491 installations, La Gomera has accounted for 114 installations and El Hierro has managed to increase from 5 to 59 installations.
These advances have been achieved thanks to the large number of aids offered by all the Canary Islands administrations in these four years and to the world energy situation that has been experienced as a consequence of the war between Ukraine and Russia. The Government of the Canary Islands currently maintains different open aids related to the Next Generation Funds and this type of renewable energy. On the one hand, there is the incentive program linked to self-consumption and storage. On the other hand, there is a line of aid specifically focused on promoting shared self-consumption and energy communities on the islands.
