In Tenerife, like in other isolated regions, it is essential to achieve energy diversification. Tenerife has scarce endogenous energy sources, and therefore depends largly on the outside for its supply. This fact, together with the increase of the population and the consolidation of the Canary Islands as a tourist destination, makes it necessary for all the public and private agents to be involved in the promotion of the renewable energies and in the implementation of policies on energy saving and efficiency.

In this context, the creation of the Agencia Insular de Energía de Tenerife will be useful to join the efforts of all the agents implied in this sector, in order to reduce the Energy consumption in Tenerife, and to achieve greater energy diversification

The Regional Ministry of Employment, Industry and Energy Efficiency has resolved the call of grants to solar thermal energy installations for the year 2009, and has extended the deadline for the execution of the installations. The resolution has been published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands nº 145 of July 26, 2010 and can be consulted in the following link (only in Spanish) http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/boc/2009/142/012.htmlThe beneficiaries of the grants are listed in the annex I of the resolution, in which also is indicated the action to be executed, the amount of the grant and the evaluation. Moreover, the resolutions modifies the deadline for the execution and justification that have been extended until November 30, 2010.

Empower is an eParticipation Trial Project co-funded by the European Commission under the EU eParticipation Preparatory Action. eMPOWER is aiming to motivate and strengthen the involvement of NGOs and citizens in the decision-making process on environmental issues at a National and European level by providing method and tools for supporting citizens’ participation and collection of signatures to promote relevant public initiatives and demands of civil society.

After having checked the installations of Peru, El Salvador and Paraguay during the las month of May, two teams of experts form ITER will go back to South America. THe team, which is responsible for the in-situ verification of 12 of the installalations in Guatemala, is in the country since the 5th of July and has already made the in-situ verification of all the planned installations. Meanwhile, the technicians who carried out this work in Bolivia will leave next Monday for la Paz, with the aim of verifying 9 of the 59 facilities provided in this country within the EURO-SOLAR Programme.