05/05/2004 00:00
TW
0
Staff Reporter HOTELS in the Balearic Islands are making preparations for power supply savings in time for the approaching high tourist season. At a time when occupation levels reach their peak for the year, a 100 or so hoteliers have voluntarily agreed to taking part in an “energy audit”. A spokesman for the power supply company in the Balearics, Gesa, commented yesterday “the objective is to reduce the amount of electricity used by between 10 and 20 percent with a minimum cost to the hotelier. Any expense could be amortized by the tourist businesses.



The Balearic government will finance up to 50 percent of the costs that hoteliers will have to pay out to save on electricity in the long run.
Gesa, a daughter company of the power organisation, Endesa, has been the brainchild behind the campaign on energy saving. It has been prompted to action by the approach of the summer season when its infrastructure has to support great pressure during peak demand from thousands of users, residents and tourists alike.

Last summer, Gesa recorded an all-time-high in energy demand, which on 19 August stood at 914 megawatts on Majorca and Minorca.
According to estimates of the organisation headed up by Bartomeu Reus, the record will be superceded this year, possibly reaching 950 megawatts.
According to Gesa's estimates, the thousand or so tourist establishments in the Balearics would only need “minimal investment” in order to achieve up to 20 percent savings in their electricity bills.

In fact, the power company specifies that the consumption of electricity could be cut by 10 percent, of propane gas by 15 percent and gasoil by 15 percent if only minor adjustments were made in the installations of each of these forms of energy supply.

In this respect, Gesa also vindicates the high cost it charges to guarantee the supply of power to an ever-increasing population (the Balearics will soon exceed one million inhabitants). The Islands' power supply sources support the consumption of more than 10 million tourists each year.

The company has invested 700 million euros in the last 6 years in order to double energy generation capacity; 180 million in distribution, and 420 million in a natural gas supply.