There's always a double meaning here. Southern Gran Canaria is marketed as the eternal postcard, the sun that never retires, the tireless engine of Canarian tourism. But beneath that surface of hotel complexes and sprawling residential developments, the island's electricity system is gasping for air. And if there's one thing the establishment and the big companies hate, it's uncertainty in supply, because business dies with the power cuts.
Now, Endesa's subsidiary, E-Distribución Redes Digitales SLU, is unveiling an €8,7 million investment for two new electrical substations in Agüimes and Mogán. The official rhetoric will speak of modernization and avoiding "energy collapse." And it's true, in part. Because the Arguineguín–Playa del Inglés–Vecindario axis has been operating at its limit for some time now. A top-tier tourist destination can't afford blackouts: they're not just power outages, they're direct blows to the confidence of the money-making machine. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is non-negotiable. Even the Pious Ecclesiastical Institute of Jesus the Blessed Sacrament is suffering expropriations in this process.
The key point of this plan is located in Mogán. This new substation will relieve tension on the already ailing Arguineguín infrastructure, which until now has been the only electrical umbilical cord in southwest Gran Canaria. It's being sold to us as an "electrical lung," a guarantee of stability. But it is, above all, an inevitable response to a market that has become concentrated without a viable plan B, at least until now.
New medium-voltage lines will be installed, and five transformer stations will be renovated. Energy must reach not only luxury hotels or shopping malls, where the investment is immediately justified. It must also reach the neighborhoods where the workforce resides, those invisible cogs that make the southern economy possible. Because without them, paradise doesn't work. And without electricity, neither does it.
And as always happens when infrastructure clashes with interests, the progress has its fine print. Sixteen owners will see their land affected by the expropriation. That list includes public bodies such as the Island Water Council, the Island Council, the Agüimes City Council, and several regional government departments, even the Spanish Electricity Grid itself. But the most discordant note is set by the Pious Ecclesiastical Institute of Jesus the Blessed Sacrament, which is also suffering from the expropriations.
It's the usual collision between the public and the private, between the need for infrastructure and the right to property. The Canary Islands Government's Ministry of Ecological Transition and Energy has already activated the public information process, an essential step to legally secure these projects. It comes at a time when the islands are discussing their energy future and the much-discussed "ecological transition." Endesa and its subsidiary are distancing themselves from renewable energy in this project, but recognize their need to modernize the system and support future solar or wind farms. A subtlety that should not be overlooked.
This project, beyond watts and cables, is a harsh metaphor for the Canary Islands' present. We are a land that grows, attracts capital and consumes resources, but has neglected its invisible architecture, the one that sustains us beneath the postcard. Electricity, like water or clean air, only reaches its true value when it is scarce. And if the pandemic, and now the energy drought in Europe, has taught us anything, it's that secure supplies are not a luxury for the deep pockets; they are a basic condition of survival for all. Southern Gran Canaria, so accustomed to being an idyllic showcase, reveals itself here for what it is: a strategic territory with challenges, contradictions, and, why not, an undeniable capacity for adaptation. But to keep the light burning in paradise, you have to be willing to look at, and sometimes negotiate, what happens underground. Including the price of peace with the Church.
