Energy on La Palma
Data equals power: The power to be able to understand reality, to be able to make good decisions and to achieve goals. On this page, we present a selection of important data in the context of energy and climate change on La Palma.
Emissions on La Palma
On the ClimateView link, you can see all the greenhouse gas emissions of La Palma, as well as the decarbonisation targets and projects currently underway on the island. We make sure to regularly update the ClimateView data, which reflects our agile way of working to ensure that the information we dispose of translates into maximum impact as quickly as possible.
Clean Energy Transition Agenda
La Palma was selected in February 2019 as one of the 6 pilot islands of the European Commission’s Clean energy for EU islands initiative. The selection involved, among other things, technical support to write a participatory Transition Agenda. This is our first version of the Agenda:
Energy situation on La Palma
Below you can find a selection of 5 graphs to help illustrate the current electricity situation on the island. Note that this data relates to electricity only, and therefore does not include fossil energy used for transport or other non-electricity uses.
Demand & Consumption
The current situation of electricity generation on La Palma, as can be seen in this first graph, is one of high dependency on the thermal power plant “Los Guinchos”, with its diesel engines providing almost 90% of the island’s electricity in 2019.
Evolution of electricity
In this second graph, we can see that the peak of electricity consumption occurred in 2008. There have been fluctuations since then. The aim of the island’s decarbonisation plan is to achieve a reduction in electricity consumption, whilst increasing the percentage of renewable energy in the island’s energy mix.
The graph also shows how renewable energies grew slightly until 2013 and then practically stagnated, remaining at a very small percentage. The aim of the decarbonisation plan is to increase the production of renewable electricity.
Energy demand by use
In the following graph we can see that households constitute the majority of electricity demand in La Palma. They are therefore a key sector in our decarbonisation plan, as an actor who can both support reductions in electricity consumption and facilitate the generation of electricity through self-consumption.
The second actor(s) with significant energy consumption are public administrations and companies, which are also included in our island’s decarbonisation plan.
Self-consumption
The following graphs show the self-consumption installations in the Canary Islands Government’s Administrative Register of Electricity Self-consumption Installations. The first graph shows their evolution over time and the second shows their distribution by municipality.