If Las Palmas is already extracting tourism revenue from southern Gran Canaria, now it's the subsoil's turn. The industrial periphery and the agricultural midlands that crown the southeastern basin of Gran Canaria have just been officially transformed into a vast testing ground for the archipelago's energy transition: final approval has been given to the Comarca Sureste 2 mining exploration permit.
The resolution validates the request of the Gran Canaria Island Energy Council to search for high enthalpy resources in the deep subsoil of a territorial strip that covers 220 mining grids, an area equivalent to about 6.600 hectares of land or the visual scale of more than 9.200 regular football fields.
The geographical boundaries of the mining area lie directly within the economic heart of the municipalities of Ingenio, Agüimes, Santa Lucía de Tirajana, and San Bartolomé de Tirajana, presenting a major technical challenge. The Island Council has assumed ownership of the exploration rights with the aim of finding stable thermal anomalies exceeding 150 degrees Celsius at great depths, an essential condition for developing the island's first geothermal power plant.
The project seeks to break the historical dependence on fossil fuel power plants in the south without subjecting the system to the intermittency that plagues wind farms and surface photovoltaic plants.
The leap in scale from current surface renewable energy generation to deep volcanic bedrock drilling has reignited technical debates about geological safety in island territories. Engineers from the regional government's Mining Service will closely monitor the work plan due to the inherent risks of high-enthalpy systems. The main concern lies in induced seismicity, a phenomenon typically associated with rock fracturing and the injection of high-pressure fluids to stimulate the thermal reservoir.
International experience in active volcanic basins necessitates rigorous seismic microzonation campaigns before any drilling is carried out. The structural stability of the affected municipalities is another critical factor in the project. Massive extraction of steam and mineralized fluids without an equivalent reinjection balance can alter the pore water pressures of intermediate water tables, leading to subsidence or localized ground collapse.
The guidelines imposed in the admission process require the Island Energy Council to detail the mathematical simulation models that prevent both the premature cooling of the deep reservoir due to excess return of cold water and the mechanical collapse of the test wells.
The chemical composition of deep-seated fluids adds complexity to the environmental monitoring of the region. Geothermal wells in tectonic areas often release non-condensable gases trapped in the bedrock, with hydrogen sulfide being particularly toxic, in addition to varying concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane.
Exploratory drilling requires high-strength steel casing systems and watertight cementing to prevent leakage of these compounds and stop the infiltration of heavy metals such as arsenic, boron, or mercury into the upper aquifers, on which agricultural operations in the southeast of the island depend.
The opening of the fifteen-day period for interested parties to appear and submit objections marks a crucial time for hotel associations and irrigation communities in the southern region. In-person consultation of the maps at the Multiple Services Building III in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria will allow private landowners to verify whether the project's mining easements interfere with the development of urban or rural tourism infrastructure in the south of the island. The Gran Canaria Island Council is thus initiating a significant public investment aimed at demonstrating that the islands' energy stability lies in the heat reserves within their volcanic interior.
