Gran Canaria: energy communities as key for resilient energy systems in outermost regions

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the largest city in the Canary Islands and a signatory of the Covenant of Mayors, demonstrating a strong commitment to climate action and energy transition. As an outermost region of the EU, the island faces structural challenges related to energy dependency, vulnerability to climate change and the security and stability of its isolated electrical system. In this context, advancing energy sovereignty, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening grid resilience are key priorities, driving the promotion of initiatives such as energy communities.

Siete Palmas Energy Community emerges as a pilot initiative aimed at fostering distributed renewable energy generation and collective self-consumption in an urban environment. Located in a mixed residential and commercial district of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the project addresses both economic and systemic challenges by democratising access to clean energy, reducing energy costs for participants and strengthening local resilience, while contributing to a more decentralised, efficient and flexible local energy system and improving demand management at neighbourhood scale.

An citizen-led energy community with institutional backing

The initiative began to take shape in 2021 with the support of the Gran Canaria Energy Council (CIEGC), following an initial assessment that identified Siete Palmas as a high-potential area for solar energy deployment due to its solar resource, availability of suitable rooftops and active local community. While strongly supported and facilitated by public institutions, it was structured as a citizen-based project, combining institutional backing with local ownership and participation. The community was formally established in 2023 as a non-profit association and has since grown steadily from a small group of founding residents to more than 300 members, including households, small businesses and local entities.

Today, the community’s main activity is the generation and sharing of locally produced renewable electricity through collectively managed solar photovoltaic installations, with a total installed capacity of 1,085.86 kWp. Deployed on privately owned rooftops made available through leasing agreements, the installations are fully owned by the energy community, ensuring that both control and benefits remain at local level.

Operating under the Spanish regulatory framework for collective self-consumption, the model enables virtual energy sharing among its members, allowing electricity generated by a single installation to be distributed among multiple users within a radius of up to 5 km without the need for additional physical infrastructure. Energy sharing is based on fixed allocation coefficients, which can be periodically adjusted to reflect changes in consumption patterns or membership. Participation in the community is open to any user within the defined area holding an electricity supply point, with access to shared generation capacity granted through an annual fee of approximately €100 per kWp reserved, ensuring a simple participation model.

Looking ahead, the community aims to further strengthen its role within the local energy system by integrating storage solutions, promoting energy efficiency and sustainable mobility, and developing targeted actions to address energy poverty.

© Gran Canaria Island Energy Council (2023, own source)

A Covenant Coordinator supporting throughout the project

The municipality of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria contributes by creating a favourable policy environment through local climate and energy strategies. The practical deployment of the Siete Palmas Energy Community has been driven by the Gran Canaria Energy Council (CIEGC), a public entity under the island regional government (Cabildo de Gran Canaria) and territorial coordinator of the Covenant of Mayors.

Acting as a public technical enabler, the CIEGC provides continuous support across the full project lifecycle, from initial design to implementation and early operation. This includes technical supervision, regulatory guidance, legal structuring, and the development and management of collective self-consumption schemes, as well as operational support such as energy sharing management, coordination with grid operators, and monitoring tools. It also contributes to economic and organisational aspects, including user engagement and operational sustainability.  

At present, the income generated by the community is primarily reinvested to cover the costs of the installations and its establishment, while members benefit from reduced electricity costs. Although no specific mechanisms to address energy poverty are yet in place, both the municipality and the CIEGC are planning a municipal-level diagnosis to design targeted social interventions in the future.  

A scalable model for insular and outermost regions

The Siete Palmas Energy Community has recently completed the installation phase and is now entering the operational stage, with the energy sharing scheme currently being progressively implemented. Estimated annual production is around 1,727,000 kWh/year, leading to expected emissions reductions of approximately 896 tCO₂/year.  

Members will be able to reduce their electricity costs by 40% to 60%, improving affordability and economic resilience. Local businesses, particularly those with high energy demand and consumption profiles aligned with solar generation hours, can benefit significantly from these savings, boosting their competitiveness and supporting the overall economic development of the neighbourhood.  

Beyond economic impacts, the initiative has strengthened social cohesion, increased awareness of energy and sustainability issues, and fostered active participation at neighbourhood level.  

For an island such as Gran Canaria, however, one of the most relevant impacts lies at system level. By promoting local generation and consumption, the project helps reduce pressure on the electricity grid, which is particularly important in an isolated system with limited interconnection capacity and high dependence on imported fuels. In addition, it contributes to diversifying the local energy mix, increasing the share of renewable energy sources and reducing reliance on conventional generation. In this sense, energy communities can play a strategic role in strengthening grid robustness and flexibility, especially as they evolve to integrate storage and other flexibility solutions.

As one of the first pilot initiatives of its kind on the island, the Siete Palmas Energy Community has played a pioneering role in overcoming early barriers and demonstrating the feasibility of collective self-consumption in an urban context. This has enabled the development of 14 additional residential and industrial energy communities in Gran Canaria and is helping to establish a scalable model for replication in other island and outermost-region contexts.  

© Gran Canaria Island Energy Council (2023, own source)

Flexility, transparency and simplicity as key words

The development of energy community projects in Gran Canaria has been a continuous learning process, shaped by the uncertainty that naturally surrounds such emerging organisational and regulatory models, particularly in a context with still limited practical references. In this setting, one of the clearest lessons has been the importance of strong institutional support and political will in turning these initiatives into viable projects. The experience has also shown that administrative and regulatory complexity requires dedicated technical support, backed by a strong and multidisciplinary team, to effectively guide communities through legal, operational and implementation challenges.

Another key lesson relates to project financing. The Siete Palmas experience has helped unlock new public-private financing mechanisms, including arrangements in which installation companies themselves contributed to financing the solar installations, complemented by significant public support through grants for the establishment, mobilisation and implementation of the community. This has demonstrated the value of flexible and innovative financing schemes in making energy communities feasible.  

The project has also highlighted the importance of a clear governance structure through a non-profit association, which has proven to be a particularly effective model in ensuring transparency, credibility and trust among participants. At the same time, the experience shows that early-stage communication and engagement should be strengthened to secure broader participation from the outset. Financial structuring must also remain simple, transparent and accessible, enabling both individuals and businesses to participate, and in some cases act as investors when they recognise the value and potential of the project.  

Next Steps

Looking ahead, the main challenge is to consolidate the long-term viability of the community across financial, technical and social dimensions.  

Financially, this involves improving access to funding, unlocking new financing mechanisms and moving towards a business model that ensures the community’s continuity and growth through its own activity, with less dependence on political cycles and external support.  

From a technical perspective, priorities include expanding installed capacity, addressing grid access constraints and progressively integrating storage solutions to increase flexibility and system value.

Socially, maintaining trust, transparency and active participation will be essential as the community grows, ensuring long-term engagement and stability.

At policy level, clearer and more enabling regulatory frameworks for energy communities are still needed at EU and national level, particularly to simplify energy sharing and operational arrangements. In Spain, the recent extension of the maximum distance between generation and consumption from 2 km to 5 km illustrates how regulatory progress can unlock new opportunities for scale and participation.  

At regional and local level, efforts will focus on streamlining procedures and scaling support mechanisms. The municipality and the CIEGC will remain key enablers, supporting expansion, new services and the gradual inclusion of energy poverty measures.  

Replication Potential

Siete Palmas Energy Community demonstrates how collective self-consumption can be implemented in urban environments by leveraging existing infrastructure and regulatory frameworks to enable shared renewable energy use. It is already serving as a reference model for other energy communities across Gran Canaria and at national level, particularly in terms of its legal structuring, innovative financing schemes involving installation companies, combined with strong public, private and citizen engagement, rooftop leasing arrangements, system design aligned with regulatory requirements, and digital tools for energy allocation and sharing.

Beyond the national context, the initiative provides valuable insights for EU outermost regions and island territories, where limited interconnection and high energy dependency increase the strategic value of local generation. It highlights the importance of institutional support, technical assistance and community engagement as key enablers for the successful development and scaling of energy communities. 

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

Energy Community in Focus

Siete Palmas Energy Community  

Active since: 2023

Stage of implementation: Established Energy Community

Key Energy Figures

• Total capacity installed: 1,085.86 kWp
• Ratio production/consumption: 75 % (estimated)
• - X% reduction in average in bills: Estimated 40%–60% for participating users 

Type of support from the Municipality

• Facilitation: setting targets, one stop shop, workshops, permits, access to meeting rooms…

Covenant Figures

• Signatory to the Covenant of Mayors since: 2017
• Emission reduction ambitions: 
  • - 40 % GHG emissions reductions by 2030
  • Climate neutrality by 2050

Related links 

• Website of the energy community 
• Energy Council of Gran Canaria