The Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has formally initiated the public exposure process for granting a strategic administrative concession to the company Sampol Ingeniería y Obras Canarias. The project involves the deployment of an emergency and discontinuous power generation plant in the Fishing Dock of the Tenerife port, a critical infrastructure recognized by the regional government and energy sector analysts to mitigate the vulnerability of the island’s electricity system, which operates in isolation from continental European territory.
The request from the subsidiary of the Balearic engineering group covers an area of approximately 6,300 square meters. The technical proposal includes the channeling and laying of underground connection conduits to the Dique del Este substation, a key distribution node controlled by Red Eléctrica de España that will allow the injection of backup power directly into the island’s transport network during voltage drops or unsustainable peaks in energy demand.
The regulatory response to the risk of systemic failures in non-interconnected systems
The arrival of Sampol at the Tenerife port is part of the temporary and extraordinary measures promoted by public administrations following successive alert reports issued by the system operator. The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, in coordination with the Ecological Transition Department of the Government of the Canary Islands, determined the urgent need to install rapid response power to cover the generation deficit that the archipelago faces due to the obsolescence of some groups at the main thermal power plants in Granadilla and Las Caletillas.
The specificities of the Tenerife electricity network, which lacks underwater connections with the rest of Spain or with the African continent, turn any mismatch between supply and demand into a potential risk of widespread blackout. The introduction of discontinuous generation based on gas turbines or state-of-the-art diesel modules provides network technicians with an indispensable operational flexibility tool to stabilize the system frequency in situations where renewable energy contributions —wind and photovoltaic— suffer sudden drops due to Atlantic weather variables.
The choice of port land to locate this emergency power is based on strictly logistical and operational reasons. The Fishing Dock offers direct access to seawater cooling systems and simplifies the supply of liquid or gaseous fuels via tanker ships, avoiding the transit of heavy trucks through the metropolitan area of Santa Cruz. Proximity to the Dique del Este substation drastically reduces energy losses during transportation, optimizing the thermal and economic performance of the proposed installation.
Sampol’s portfolio
The processing of this concession consolidates Sampol’s position in the isolated electrical systems market, a segment characterized by high technical specialization and strong barriers to entry for international competitors. The engineering group focuses its growth strategy on obtaining contracts for critical infrastructure support, where commercial margins reflect the urgency and technological complexity of energy security projects. The Canary Islands subsidiary of the firm will take charge of the construction management and the integration of the control systems that will connect the emergency plant with the dispatch centers of Red Eléctrica de España.
