The Canary Islands are advancing their energy transition, marked by Endesa’s recent opening of the Canary Islands Control Center for the electric grid. A 2.3 million euro investment positions this facility as one of the most advanced in the country. Endesa’s General Manager of Infrastructures and Networks, José Manuel Revuelta, stated that the project places the Canary Islands on the map for energy transition and highlights efforts to ready the grid for self-consumption and electric vehicles, which are expected to grow substantially over the next eight years.
The National Plan foresees around five million electric vehicles by 2030, with room for higher numbers as awareness of electrification grows in response to environmental concerns. The drive to deploy electric vehicles and the grid is capital intensive, and sustained cooperation among administrations is essential, Revuelta noted.
Present at the event were Miguel Ángel Pérez, Deputy Minister for Combating Climate Change and Ecological Transformation of the Canary Islands Government, and Augusto Hidalgo, mayor of the capital. Also in attendance were José Manuel Revuelta, Pablo Casado (Managing Director of Endesa in the Canary Islands), and Carlos Lafoz and Saúl Barrio, directors of Distribution and Production in the Canary Islands, representing the company.
the latest technology
The Canary Islands Control Center brings together cutting-edge technology to monitor, supervise, and manage the grid across approximately 26,000 kilometers of medium and low voltage lines spread throughout the archipelago. The facility coordinates generation and demand across nine thermal plants, Gorona del Viento hydro-wind, El Hierro, and other renewable sources, ensuring balanced operation and rapid response.
The unit began operating early this year, but pandemic-related health restrictions and strict safety measures delayed its formal opening. In addition to the main control center, a second emergency center with identical capabilities supports operations and can be activated as needed.
For the first time in the region, Endesa now has a regional center where distribution and production activities are co-located. A glass partition ensures coordination between teams while preventing unnecessary contact. This arrangement eliminates the need for telephone handoffs between rooms and accelerates decision-making, operability, and teamwork.
The Control Center serves as the nerve center for the transformation, transmission, and distribution of electrical power. It operates as a 24/7 living space, year-round. The human team comprises 28 operators, with 16 in distribution and 12 in production, many working rotating shifts to guarantee uninterrupted service.
No one in La Palma lacked the light
Revuelta remarked that the island’s power grid achieves 99.9% reliability. The ongoing rollout of the Control Center, along with digitization efforts, is moving electrification forward without disruption. Electrification drives efficiency, and the latest communications technologies support this Control Center’s capabilities. The island’s network and its dedicated staff enable preparedness for unexpected events, such as the La Palma volcanic eruption. Even amid significant challenges, electricity remained uninterrupted on La Palma (Endesa, 2024).
Distribution operators continuously monitor their assigned grid segments to deliver high-quality, safe power to consumption points. In the Canary Islands, they oversee 26,000 kilometers of medium and low voltage networks.
Most technicians in this service hold university degrees in electrical engineering. The highly skilled team performs precise, millimeter-accurate actions to ensure supply quality or rapid recovery in case of incidents. Before technicians can operate autonomously, they undergo a six-month combined theoretical and practical apprenticeship. The area manager for Distribution in the Canary Islands notes that error rates per operation in the Distribution room are very low, typically two or three errors per 100,000 maneuvers, usually without consequences.
Given the central role of these centers in the electrical system, they feature protections such as automatic switching, multiple power sources, uninterruptible power supply systems, batteries, energy storage elements, and generator sets for continued operation during outages.
Juan Carlos Lafoz explains that Endesa is advancing automation and digitization of the network. Remote control speeds fault location and enables remote management of the grid, improving response time and reliability.
In the current year, Canary Islands automation reached 20%, with one of every five conversion centers remotely controlled. The deployment is complemented by sensor elements that provide data about low-voltage networks in about 40 percent of centers.
thermal power plants
A Production Control Center dialogue collects and transmits information with the System Operator (REE) across nine thermal plants in the Canary Islands. The main parameters of six electrical systems across the archipelago are visualized, with coordination of group sequencing, availability-driven innovations, and checks of automatic frequency control. The system aligns discharges with transmission network needs and plant status.
First and foremost, the Control Center aims to keep system frequency as stable as possible, reflecting the balance between energy production and demand. The growing share of renewables places thermal plants under pressure to regulate fluctuations while maintaining dependable supply for end users.
The new control system enables observation of main electrical parameters and empowers action from the facilities if deviations occur. Events originating from the Control Center at Endesa’s headquarters in the capital can range from planned group changes to unexpected stoppages, with technicians evaluating options to substitute unused power and communicating the updated program to facilities (Endesa, 2024).
Five control centers in Spain
Endesa operates five grid control centers across its service regions, playing a pivotal role in monitoring more than 316,500 kilometers of lines. The centers are connected to Endesa’s call center to handle customer notifications and coordinate company resources. They also provide specialized technical information services for municipalities to support incident response with local emergency services and security forces.
Over the past year, e-distribución completed more than 3 million control-center maneuvers, with about 1.62 million automated actions (Endesa, 2024).