Renewable sources to provide 40% of elecricity in Madeira this year

The production of electricity from renewable sources in Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, will reach 40% this year, its president said on Tuesday, adding that investments in the sector are set to amount to €69 million by 2026.

“We will take advantage of the RRP [national Recovery and Resilience Plan to spend European Union post-pandemic funds] to make a set of very important investments, in order to ensure in the coming years that Madeira produces 50% of its electricity from renewable sources,” said the president of the government of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque during a visit to the site of a battery plant located at the Vitória Thermal Power Plant Industrial Complex west of the region’s capital Funchal, which alone represents an investment of €10.6 million.

The project is due to be completed in June of this year, after which it should ensure that electricity production from renewable sources in the region of around 40% of the total, including photovoltaic and wind power.

Albuquerque stressed that the goal of the regional government – which is a coalition between the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the conservative People’s Party (CDS-PP) is to raise the bar to 50% by 2026, with projects funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan such as the refurbishment of the €15-million Serra de Água and €6-million Calheta hydroelectric plants, new battery plants at a cost of €12 million on the island of Madeira and €10 million on neighbouring Porto Santo, and the replacement of 150,000 traditional electricity meters by smart meters ones at a cost of €21.5 million.

“We will invest, in the coming years, sixty-nine million euros, with the aim of achieving 50% of electricity production from renewable sources, ensure that Madeira is in the lead in this matter, especially in the outermost regions of Europe, reduce the ecological footprint and the emission of greenhouse gases,” Albuquerque said.

All energy sector projects in the region are overseen by the publicly-owned Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira (EEM), under the tutelage of the regional government, with the latest being the Madeira batteries plant.

The new unit is aimed at improving the efficiency of the electricity generation system on Madeira, using lithium-ion technology batteries and advanced power electronics, to allow the optimisation of local generation and the integration of more ‘green’ energy.

The total investment of around €10.6 million is being co-financed by the EU’s PO SEUR Operational Programme for Sustainability and Efficient Use of Resources and Portugal 2020 – the partnership agreement between Portugal and the European Commission that brings together the five European Structural and Investment Funds – ERDF, Cohesion Fund, ESF, EAFRD and EMFF – between 2014 and 2020, in this case to the tune of some €6.05 million.