In the Canary Islands it is possible to take advantage of the strength of the trade winds, which blow throughout the year and especially within the summer months. The work will be based on real data taken from the Agüimes (Gran Canaria Island) power station’s control centre.

Over the past decade, the energy landscape in Europe started to change. The main drivers were a significant reduction in CO 2 emissions, substitution of fossil for renewable energies and efficiency increase in electricity generation. In this regard, many investments were made in renewable energy generation plants, especially for wind, photovoltaic and biomass applications. This paper highlights the European and especially German electricity market with a focus on the implementation of renewable energies.

The future of wind energy development in Europe and worldwide is undoubtedly the offshore wind farm. Spain is the second European country in installed wind power, with significant own technology, now Spain is preparing to begin the development of offshore technology with the release of specific legislation and an environmental analysis of the entire national coastline. At present there is no offshore farm in Spain, but in 2030 the MITyC wait that the power of wind farms will reach to 40 GW on land and 4 GW offshore. The Canaries are one of the best places in Spain in terms of value of the resource, but with a limited land area 7529 km2, a high rate of population (2,070,465 people in January 2008), a high degree of protected land 42.2% of the territory, and a huge dependence on foreign petroleum for 99% of energy consumed. You have to look to the offshore wind as an opportunity to extract energy without occupying valuable and scarce land, using own resource and diversifying the energy basket. Discusses the possibility to use this technology in each of the seven islands, establishing a procedure for identifying possible places and how the national rules affect us.