The Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes this Saturday Royal Decree-Law 10/2022, of May 13, which establishes the mechanism to limit the price of gas for electricity generation, and whose Fourth Additional Provision makes it clear that the Canary Islands will have the power to plan gas on the islands and, therefore, guarantees that the gas will not be planted in the Archipelago for marketing.
Through his official Twitter account, the Canarian president has also highlighted the modification made to the Royal Decree Law of measures for the invasion of Ukraine. Thus, in the fourth additional provision of the RD published in the BOE, it is clarified that the Canary Islands will have the power to plan gas.
And, as it is not contemplated, it will not be marketed with gas on the islands, confirmed Torres.
This has been reported by the president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, who has highlighted that with this modification doubts are resolved and the commitment made is fulfilled; commitment that already advanced at the beginning of April, when he explained that the energy strategy of both governments for the islands was the same and did not include the commercialization of gas.
The Canarian Minister for Ecological Transition, José Antonio Valbuena, has indicated that the Government of the Canary Islands requested a modification to the text on the grounds that no form of gas market was contemplated in the islands’ energy planning, and he clarified that for the uses to be may occur in the archipelago “at no time would natural gas be sold in a gaseous state, since it could give the impression that said fourth final provision was imposed on the planning elaborated in the Canary Islands, which generated a certain insecurity”.
In this sense, Valbuena explained that the thermal power plants work on a self-consumption basis and do not require administrative authorization, since the power plant itself transforms the supplied gas from a liquid state to a gaseous state to feed the groups that generate electricity.
From the Government of the Canary Islands, a modification of the text was considered necessary, since with the initial wording it could be interpreted that the competencies of the Canary Islands were not contemplated when designing its energy transition.
«With the new wording it is clear that at all times the competence framework of both administrations, the state and the Canary Islands, must be taken into account, and, therefore, there is no longer any risk of a regasification plant being installed that opens the door to some form of gas market without the approval of the regional Executive, which must have it contemplated, in its planning”, pointed out the counselor.
In the planning prepared by the Autonomous Community “this possibility is not contemplated and it is clear that the fourth final provision cannot be developed, as long as the energy planning of the Canary Islands is not modified.” Thus, “any type of doubt or unknown that could arise about a possible modification of the energy transition plans that the Government of the Canary Islands has drawn up” is eliminated.
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