Gran Canaria is once again pressuring the central government to finalize the first offshore wind auction, in a scenario marked by years of waiting and a portfolio of developments that still awaits certainty to move forward.
In a dialogue with Energía Estratégica , Raúl García Brink, Councilor for Environment, Climate, Energy and Knowledge of the Gran Canaria Island Council , placed this technology among the pillars for modifying the island's electricity mix.
“The island’s energy transition will likely involve the installation of approximately 1000 MW at sea,” he stated.
In February, the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) took a further step with a public consultation to define Spain's first competitive procurement procedure. The model envisions a bilateral Contract for Difference (CfD) and incorporates criteria related to environmental impact, job creation, and industrial development.
The definition comes in the face of a market that is significantly oversized compared to official targets. A survey by Energía Estratégica identified more than 40 offshore pre-projects in the permitting process, with a combined capacity exceeding 20 GW , while the Spanish roadmap sets a target of 1.3 GW installed by 2030.
For the Canary Islands, the question is no longer just when the bidding process will take place, but what the final conditions will be.
“The 250 MW that are intended to be installed in this first phase already falls short,” García Brink pointed out.
The wait is starting to take its toll.
The archipelago has long sought to position itself as a gateway for floating technology in Spain. During FES Iberia 2025 , the Canary Islands government reported more than 25 projects under study in southeastern Gran Canaria , one of the areas that had attracted the most interest from developers.
That scenario, however, is beginning to change.
“We’ve been waiting a very long time. There are few developers left interested in setting up shop because they’ve gone to other places where they’ve found better opportunities to make that investment,” the councilor warned.
The industry had also expressed this concern. In October 2025, the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE) proposed starting in the Canary Islands with a park of between 200 and 250 MW , integrated within a national pilot market of 1 GW.
The scheme sought to provide local projects to a value chain made up of shipyards, ports, engineering firms and manufacturers, at a time when floating wind power is beginning to open up commercial opportunities outside of Spain.
García Brink also questioned the treatment that the Canary Islands received during the previous process and pointed to the territorial differences that permeated the national debate.
“I think more attention has been paid to the fishing sector in Galicia and also to the problems in Catalonia, where there is significant citizen resistance. Here there was consensus, but it wasn't taken into sufficient consideration,” he argued.
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The industrial dimension adds to the territory's unique energy characteristics. Renewables currently account for around 23% to 24% of Gran Canaria's electricity production , within an isolated system that still relies heavily on conventional generation.
The scarcity of available land adds another variable. Part of the Cabildo's strategy involves utilizing rooftops, parking lots, and other human-modified spaces for photovoltaics, while offshore developments would allow for larger volumes without increasing land use proportionally.
The expansion of clean energy generation, in turn, presents the challenge of managing increasingly variable production. In this regard, Salto de Chira is emerging as one of Gran Canaria's key infrastructure projects, with approximately 200 MW of pumped storage capacity .
“ It will allow us to practically double the level of renewable energy penetration on the island ,” García Brink said.
This infrastructure could be complemented by a new market for batteries. The Government is working on amending Royal Decree 738/2015 , with the aim of integrating stand-alone and hybrid systems into the electricity dispatch system of the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla.
The project creates new categories for these assets and differentiates their economic regime according to size and configuration. Certain installations larger than 0.5 MW will be able to purchase the electricity intended for their load for the equivalent of 25% of the value offered for discharge , while hybrid systems with renewables will be subject to a signal associated with the thermal gap.
Gran Canaria is preparing its own contributions to the process opened by the Executive.
“Our proposal is bolder or more daring than that of the central government, because we are trying to ensure that this remuneration system contributes to and stimulates the implementation of renewable energy and storage,” explained García Brink.
For the island official, this last resource acquires particular importance due to the lack of interconnection with a large continental system.
“Without storage, there is no energy transition on an island. Not on a continent either, but on an island I can assure you it is practically impossible,” he stated.
The grid is the other limiting factor. According to data provided during the interview, approximately 70% of Gran Canaria's energy nodes are experiencing high levels of saturation . This situation restricts evacuation options and necessitates searching for locations where there is still capacity to connect new grid infrastructure.
“Without a distribution network there is no energy transition,” he summarized.
The challenge thus lies in aligning infrastructures that are currently progressing along different tracks: offshore generation, pumping, batteries and electrical reinforcements.
While Spain finalizes how it will open its offshore wind market, Gran Canaria is seeking to ensure that the first call for tenders is of sufficient scale to respond to the particularities of its system and recover the investment momentum it managed to attract in recent years.