Balears has executed only 25% of the funds of the Government Recovery Plan for energy projects

The total budget allocated to the Autonomous Community amounts to € 291M, of which only € 75M have been awarded in the seven calls for IDAE aid programs with a finalist and territorialized management character

Balears has executed on average 25% of the money of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) that had been allocated to it by the Government of Spain through the Institute for Diversification and Energy Saving (IDAE), for its direct management by the Autonomous Community. These are seven lines of aid financed with European funds and finalist for energy improvement and efficiency projects aimed at citizens, SMEs and local entities, for which the islands had an overall budget of € 291M, of which only € 75M have been distributed. According to the update of data provided by the CAIB to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, these calls received applications worth €274M in the archipelago.

In some of these programmes, the level of implementation of the funds granted is significantly below the State average; thus, for example, Balears has implemented only 11% of the €2.9M allocated by the IDAE for renewable thermal projects in industry and services - which is 5% of the total requests for subsidies received - compared to the 46% level of achievement of the plan by the autonomous communities as a whole. In the case of the line for self-consumption, storage and heating of the residential sector, the islands have granted 4 out of 10 euros, from a budget of 43.3 M€, and another similar percentage - 38% - is the one that has been executed to date for the aid of the Energy Rehabilitation of Buildings Program, provided by the Government with slightly more than 7M€ to be distributed by the Autonomous Community.

With regard to the IDAE programme specifically aimed at the two archipelagos to offset the impact of insularity, of the almost €200 million allocated to Balears to finance sustainable energy initiatives, €38.7M, representing 20%, has been implemented. However, the autonomous community received petitions for a global amount of €118M.

In all these calls, grants are awarded to all persons who request them, in order of application, and provided that they meet the requirements. The IDAE is in charge of distributing the funds between the autonomous administrations, according to a targeted distribution system and previously agreed between the central government and the regional governments. When communities run out of the allocated budget, they can request extensions. In the case of Balears, the heading for self-consumption was extended by an additional €30M, while that of the efficient and sustainable mobility programme MOVES III, with an initial allocation of €9.8M, was extended by an additional €28M, since the number of grant applications far exceeded the initial figure. However, only 32% of requests for assistance have been resolved.

The government delegate in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, has expressed his concern about the low degree of compliance with these programs that “constitute decisive support for the implementation of key policies in the transition to a new energy model”. “Balears must work more and better in the execution of these funds, so that this great opportunity for citizens, the business community and Balearic society is not lost,” he warned.