Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- The president of the Ports of Las Palmas, Luis Ibarra, assures that La Luz will not give up the “historic opportunity” offered by offshore wind power to the Canary Islands and Spain and calls for a business agreement with the Zamakona Yards shipyards, which already operate in this sector at their facilities.
This is how Ibarra stated this Wednesday when referring to the reasons why the tender called by the Las Palmas Port Authority for the “Construction and exploitation, under a public domain concession regime, of a platform in the Port of Las Palmas for the construction, repair, maintenance, transformation and development of offshore and/or land artifacts, linked to renewable energies, sustainable development and decarbonisation”.
Ibarra explained that this contest was promoted within the framework of the “public-private path” that the institution he presides understands that must be traveled to turn the port of La Luz and Las Palmas “into a benchmark for the development of renewable energies and in the space where prototypes” of offshore wind power can be assembled, an activity that will benefit the Canary Islands and also Africa.
In his opinion, this initiative was abandoned “because the Canarian companies had to make a commitment to go hand in hand with one of the big ones.”
“I think that the sector is not yet mature there, but we will continue to insist because the Port Authority is the one that defines the uses for its docks. We already have very few capacities to grow, we have one last free space in the Port of La Luz that we consider ideal for offshore wind power”, he said before participating in the presentation of the offshore wind farm that the Norwegian state company Equinor and Spanish Naturgy.
Ibarra has insisted that the Ports of Las Palmas will try not to lose “this historic opportunity for the Canary Islands and for Spain, which has to make a decisive commitment to implement renewable energies” and recalled that in La Luz the Zamakona Yards shipyard has already been granted a space at the end of the Juan Sebastián Elcano dock of about 40,000 meters that overlooks the sea to develop offshore wind projects, a plot that borders on the one offered in that contest, “the last space left” in this port.
“Zamakona has decided to go with other partners to develop similar projects”, which, perhaps, he has said, has reduced interest in the plot that has been put out to tender, measuring 111,000 meters and located at the beginning of the Juan Sebastián Elcano dock, parallel to the Nelson Mandela, to which companies can now present themselves directly, for which Ibarra will try “to have someone present with the statement that was declared void.”
In his opinion, “the logical thing” would be for “the company that comes to reach prior agreements with Zamakona to jointly use its plot, and vice versa.”
“The objective we had was for there to be an integrating project, but since Zamakona decided to do a solo project with his other partners, that has made it impossible for the contest to have a bidder and now what it is about is finding the gear of that plot with the Zamakona project”, has abounded.
For Ibarra, both plots are necessary, although he admits that Zamakona “is more attractive because it has more depth and offers the possibility of assembling structures whose elaboration needs to support 35 tons per square meter, which implies making a work of between 70 and 75 million euros”.
The Port Authority had the financial capacity to do it and now Zamakona seems to want to do it with its new partners, although his project “is going to need a company that attracts work and positions that pre-work on the plot that we have put out to tender”, has added.
In any case, Ibarra, who has highlighted that “it is difficult to work in the port because you have to assemble the interests of private companies with the port spaces and look for the general interest”, has estimated that in this matter “you have to be patient”. , as has happened in the development of the Puerto-Ciudad project or what has happened to Rodritol, “which has taken seven years to start the works for the repairs of sailboats, yachts and catamarans”.
“We are in another episode of the port that is going to need to mature internally what it wants, but here the private sector is important, as is the work of the Canary Islands Maritime Cluster and the Canary Islands Federation of Port Companies (Fedeport) and I think that we agree one hundred percent, so we are going to continue insisting ”, he asserted. EFE