The agreement was signed by the General Manager of the Transmission Division, Carlos Collantes, the Director of Corporate Affairs and Institutional Relationships, Ana Cuevas, and the regional delegate in the Canary Islands, Ainara Irigoyen, on behalf of Red Eléctrica, and the Director of PLOCAN, Octavio Llinás, at PLOCAN’s head office on the island of Gran Canaria.

Red Eléctrica and PLOCAN share interests in both highly specialised training and in underwater grid technology, which creates the ideal conditions for carrying out the project regarding routes for underwater power transmission grids

Technical teams from Red Eléctrica and PLOCAN will work together in order to identify the marine technologies necessary to study power grid routes and the transmission of offshore electricity to land. The scope of the study includes marine environment technology regarding cables, as well as reconnaissance surveys of the seabed.

The implementation of submarine links enable electricity systems to be more stable and robust and therefore more capable of integrating high variability production sources such as renewables, in addition to promoting a greater environmental and economic efficiency of the electricity system resulting from connected islands.

Currently in the Canary Islands, the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are connected by submarine cable, with other interconnections existing in the Spanish electricity system between the peninsula and Morocco, between the peninsula and Majorca, and between the islands of Majorca and Menorca on one side and Ibiza and Formentera on the other.

The technological limit for submarine electricity interconnections is a maximum depth of 1,650 metres, so today in the Canary Islands, only submarine links between the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, between Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura and between Tenerife and La Gomera are viable.

The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) is a unique scientific, technical, multipurpose and services infrastructure, composed of a set of large facilities supporting oceanic research, technological development and innovation. Its overall aim is to be the most effective infrastructure internationally to enable better research, technological development and innovation for efficient access to the ocean in increasing depths, in an environmentally sustainable manner. It is co-financed by the Governments of Spain and the Canary Islands, through the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the Canarian Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Red Eléctrica de España is the company responsible for the transmission of high voltage electricity and the proper functioning of the electricity system. With more than 40,000 kilometres of high voltage electricity lines that form a meshed, reliable and secure grid and with quality service indices of the maximum level, we ensure at all times the balance between generation and electricity consumption in Spain.

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