The Government has been promoting a sustainable energy policy for several years, such the exploitation of geothermal energy, stated the Director for Energy, José Cabral Vieira, in Ponta Delgada on Thursday afternoon.

The Regional Director spoke in a panel on the theme during the works of 30th Annual Meeting of the Islands Commission of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions at a session presided over by the Regional Under Secretary for European Affairs and External Cooperation.

According to José Cabral Vieira, the importance of these concerns have considerably increased after 2007 due to the climate change debate, becoming into alarming concerns, to which the European Union started to pay attention.

Furthermore, the Azores also aims to reduce the dependence on petroleum products as of 2007, 87 percent of primary energy was produced from petroleum, which corresponded to an energy independence of only 13%; therefore the need to increase the use of renewable energies in the Azores, especially in road transport and buildings.

The policy carried out by the Regional Government in this sector intends to increase the production of renewable energy in power generation from the current 28% to 75% by 2018.

We must also invest in energy efficiency. In this context, a geothermal power plant will be installed on Terceira Island and new holes are being drilled on S. Miguel to expand the island’s geothermal capacity.

The construction of new wind farms, the expansion of the existing ones and the construction of some hydro plants are some of the goals to be accomplished by the Government.

In addition the energy certification of buildings is another matter that deserves special attention from the Government for that reason José Cabral Vieira believes that the most competitive more in the future will be those who use efficiently energy, and they will be probably the ones with cheaper energy.