Spain’s Canary Islands approves 15 solar projects

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The Committee for Investments and Strategic Projects of the Canary Islands has given approval to 16 solar projects planned for the island of Gran Canaria.

The projects include 15 commercial PV installations of hundreds of kilowatts each and a 1 MW solar park, the local government said in a press release. The solar park will be located in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, while the other solar array will be installed in the municipalities of Ingenio, Telde, Agüimes and Galdar.

All of these projects, along with several other wind and construction projects, will be granted a special status under the law Ley 3/2015, which enables the fast-tracking of strategic projects on the archipelago’s territory. Projects admitted to these special conditions must generate new jobs and have a positive impact on the local economy, the government of the islands said.

In mid-June, the Minister of Energy of the archipelago met with Spain’s State Secretary of Energy, Daniel Navia, to discuss details of the specific auction for large-scale solar and wind that the government of the archipelago has been planning over the past months.

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Furthermore, the government of the archipelago said it expects that all solar power generators installed for self-consumption will be exempted from paying the notorious “sun tax”. Spain’s current legislation for self-consumption, in fact, imposes charges on both existing and new installations, both on a capacity and generation level.

As of the end of 2015, the Canary Islands had around 166 MW of installed PV capacity, Spanish grid operator Red Electrica de Espana.

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