New record in demand for electricity in Majorca

THE electricity supply servicing Majorca and Minorca has registered new record levels of demand. The power company Gesa reported that 9.18pm last Monday night witnessed a demand of 909 MW. The Ibiza-Formentera grid surpassed its previous record demand of August 13 by registering yesterday a new level of 167 MW, added Gesa in a communiqué.
Using the news of fresh record demand as a starting point for their report, the company drew attention to the fact that in the last ten years, electricity generation capacity on the Islands has doubled to the point where 1'456 MW is ready to supply consumer demand which is in significant contrast to the 727 MW availabe at the end of 1993. “This growth in available electrical output has run parallel to the growth in demand in the Balearic Archipelago in the last decade, which is particularly noticeable during the summer months”, Gesa confirmed yesterday. Apart from new electricity power centres constructed over the last decades, Gesa gave special emphasis to the most recent infrastructure in the form of two second cycle gas turbines, brought into action at Son Reus at the end of July. These new turbines, which cost 170 million euros, amount to two thirds of the investment that the power company Gesa-Endesa has made for the second cycle power generation programme in the Balearics. The company added that, once the second cylce power generation programme is complete, bringing added power of 599 MW, they will be able to boost by 47 percent the electricity generation capacity on the Majorca-Minorca grid. On this point, Gesa announced that it is hoped that the work at Son Reus will be complete by the summer of 2005 when a steam turbine will be installed at a cost of some 420 million euros.