The Government of the Canary Islands has announced an investment of six million euros in the Underwater Network of the test site of the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) during the visit of the Vice President of the Canary Islands Executive and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs, Román Rodríguez, to the onshore facilities of the Singular Scientific and Technological Infrastructure.
The vice president visited PLOCAN accompanied by the general director of the Office of the Vice Presidency, Martín Marrero, and the general director of Institutional Relations, Carmen Nieves Gaspar. After visiting the facilities Román Rodríguez met with the director of PLOCAN, José Joaquín Hernández Brito, and technologists of the Consortium.
Hernández Brito highlighted and thanked the previous work carried out by the director of the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society, Carlos Navarro, in managing and promoting the necessary reports for the inclusion of PLOCAN’s submarine electricity network in the European initiative React-EU and has expressed its satisfaction with the important support provided by the Government to the scientific and technological development of the ICTS test site.
The funding of the Submarine Network will allow to expand the existing electrical network for the evacuation of the energy generated in the devices that are tested in the test site of the Oceanic Platform, which occupies 22 square kilometers northeast of Gran Canaria.
The vice president explained that the Government of the Canary Islands has included this project among the projects that will be financed with the 630 million euros that correspond to the Archipelago within the European React-EU initiative, and highlighted that PLOCAN is a leading scientific institution in the marine research that can act as a pole of attraction for large foreign investments, many of them already underway.
The director of PLOCAN, José Joaquín Hernández Brito, thanked the vice president for his commitment to the Consortium and pointed out that the investment of 6 million euros will allow, through two 5 megawatt anchored cables, the evacuation of electricity from the test site.
Hernández explained that this infrastructure is vital to attract international projects in different specialties and pointed out that there are many companies waiting to invest and this project will facilitate things to consolidate PLOCAN’s position of reference in marine renewable energies and, specifically, in floating wind power.
