Lanzarote joins Fuerteventura in opposing Renewable Acceleration Zones
The Lanzarote Island Council, which until now had been collaborating on the protocol of the Canary Islands Government’s Department of Ecological Transition regarding the declaration of Renewable Acceleration Zones (ZAR), now aligns with Fuerteventura in rejecting this formula.
The ZARs of Lanzarote are divided into wind zones (light‑blue), photovoltaic zones (yellow and orange) and mixed zones (green), which can be either suitable or conditioned.
Both island councils have jointly and emphatically rejected the Renewable Acceleration Zones (ZAR) model promoted by the Department of Ecological Transition and Energy of the Canary Islands Government, arguing that it is incompatible with the territorial, environmental and landscape reality of the two islands. In a manifesto signed by the island presidents, Oswaldo Betancort and Lola García (CC), the institutions state that the energy transition cannot be carried out “at the cost of territorial degradation or the island landscape”.
The two councils argue that the philosophy behind the ZARs—based on administrative acceleration of large energy installations—has generated growing social concern, being perceived as a pathway that could favour rapid deployment of projects on rural land, directly affecting the landscape, the territory and the islands’ development model. In their manifesto, both corporations stress that Lanzarote and Fuerteventura have historically built their identity on the preservation of natural values and remind that both islands are UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.
The pronouncement comes after regional minister Mariano Hernández Zapata (PP) presented the ZARs as a tool to organise renewable deployment, delineate where projects may or may not be developed, and reduce the use of the extraordinary 6‑bis procedures.
In an interview with Fuerteventura Digital, Zapata described the ZARs as “the real vaccine, the genuine antidote” to those procedures, and highlighted the work already carried out in Lanzarote in collaboration with the council.
“The ZARs are the real vaccine, the genuine antidote to those 6‑bis procedures being created for renewables.” – Mariano Hernández Zapata
Before publishing the joint manifesto, on Monday 16 March the Fuerteventura council had taken a more confrontational stance towards the ZARs and, in general, towards the Canary Islands Government’s renewable‑energy authorisation policy—unlike the Lanzarote council, which had until then collaborated with the Department of Ecological Transition on the ZAR protocol.
Renewables should be placed on existing roofs first
In their manifesto, the two island councils insist that renewable installations must prioritise existing roofs and infrastructures, in line with current regional legislation. The 2022 Climate Change and Energy Transition Law of the Canary Islands remains the framework, and the regulation of the Canary electric sector was revised and published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands in June 2024.
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura demand that, before occupying new land, objective studies determine the real potential for deployment on roofs, existing buildings and already‑constructed facilities, as well as the current utilisation of those surfaces. They also request that any project finally required on land be subject to extremely restrictive criteria for landscape and territorial protection.
The manifesto also expresses a “deep concern” about the removal, according to the two corporations, of the environmental assessment for certain projects located in ZARs after a decree approved in January 2026. Therefore, they ask the Canary Islands Parliament to restore the mandatory environmental assessment for all renewable projects intended for these zones. The Canary Government, on its part, has been defending since 2024 the delimitation of ZARs as a formula to orderly deploy renewables based on territorial and island criteria.