On Tuesday 12 February 2019, the government of the regional autonomous community of the Balearic Islands (Spain) passed a landmark piece of legislation - the Climate Change and Energy Transition Law.

The law, which was pioneered by the progressive coalition governing the islands, commits the region to take radical action to combat climate change and to realise its energy transition.

To these ends, the legislation contains a timeline of actions and deadlines for progressively reaching these goals in the next decades.

The law will oblige the islands to work towards ensuring that 100% of energy consumed in the region comes from renewable sources by the year 2050. This is both praised and criticised for being a highly ambitious target, particularly given that currently renewables only account for 3% of the region’s energy source.

At the moment, the region is predominantly dependent on fossil fuels, as well as energy sourced via a submarine electricity cable which runs from mainland Spain to Mallorca.

In this regard, the law aims to achieve 10% use of renewables by 2020, 35% by 2035, gradually leading up to the 100% target by 2050. 70% of this energy is to be produced on the islands themselves, with photovoltaic energy expected to produce the large bulk of this.

Nevertheless, other renewable sources, such as wind energy, will play a significant role in achieving these ambitious targets.
The H2020 project WinWind, which aims to increase the social acceptance of wind energy, is currently working with the islands and hopes its activities will receive additional, boosts from the legislation’s approval and implementation. This is thanks to favourable regulatory frameworks, as well as enhanced attention of citizens, policy-makers and investors to the inevitable contribution of wind energy in achieving the legislation targets set for the region.

For more information and to learn more about the WinWind project, click here.