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The Autonomous Region of Madeira is an archipelago comprising two inhabited islands -Madeira and Porto Santo- and the Desertas and Selvagens islets, on which there is no permanent population. The archipelago is located in the Atlantic, 800 km off the coast of Africa, 980 km from Lisbon and 850 km from the Azores. In 2001, it had about 243,988 permanent inhabitants, with an additional population of about 16,000 non-residents, a number indicating the importance of tourism for the social-economic development of the region. Madeira has considerable energy potential in the renewable areas of hydro, wind and solar power, but faces one problem typical of remote islands, namely managing the large differences between peak and off-peak hours, which make the use of renewable energy sources difficult. In addition, the islands suffer from handicaps in terms of access to energy networks. These are some of the reasons that lay behind the approval of the Environment Policy Plan for the Autonomous Region of Madeira in the year 2000, and of the Energy Policy Plan for the Autonomous Region of Madeira in 2002. They both constitute the framework for the implementation of specific actions that promote sustainable development.
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