Key hydroelectric projects are being revived as part of a push by Athens to decarbonise and meet irrigation needs.
The Mesohora dam, completed 20 years ago, towers 135m across a ravine cut by the Acheloos river, but its resevoir is empty
[John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
By John Psaropoulos
Local resistance
Although Greeks overwhelmingly support decarbonisation, they often oppose energy projects in their back yard. Local opposition has killed large wind farm projects on the islands of Serifos and Skyros, and it was a campaign coordinated by environmental groups that stopped the Acheloos dams.
Many of the villagers of Mesohora, which would be flooded if the dam reservoir were filled, are still against the project. The problem, says Panayotis Kotronis, who served as Mesohora community president in the 1980s, is that irrigation priorities sullied green energy priorities.
“This began as a small hydro-electric dam that would go to a height of 80 metres [260 feet],” he says. “The lake would not then flood the village, only about 10 houses. Then, as part of the Acheloos diversion project, it reached 135 metres [443 feet].”
The higher water level caused new problems, says Kotronis. “Now the lake would reach just below the village square. But the top half of the village will also slide into the lake. The studies say there will be slippage.”
The PPC, which built the dams, proposed relocating Mesohora entirely, but a new site was never settled upon.
Locals also have environmental concerns, reflecting growing scepticism about dams.
“The river’s flow is already falling,” says Yiorgos Sakkas, who was community president in 2002-10. “When it doesn’t rain, it’s just a stream. The water flows so slowly it looks green from all the algae that grow in it. We used to call it aspropotamos [the white river].”
Argyro Karayiorgou, a Mesohora resident since birth, dismisses the broader national goal of producing clean energy. “Destroying one environment to save another?” she asks. “If you destroy enough small environments, you destroy the Earth.”
Other Mesohora residents do see the broader good. Konstantinos Kotronis, the nephew of Panayotis, who also served as community president, points to the current energy crisis.
“If a country isn’t energy-autonomous, this has an impact on its people. Energy becomes expensive … [Russian President Vladimir] Putin closes the tap and gas prices shoot up,” he says
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
By John Psaropoulos
Published On 7 Dec 2021
Acheloos, Greece – In some of the remotest gorges of western Greece, at the ends of roads that wind like small intestines, sit the country’s biggest white elephant projects.
The Mesohora dam, completed 20 years ago, towers across a ravine cut by the Acheloos river, but its reservoir is empty.
Downstream lies the unfinished Sykia dam.
When work crews departed in 2009, its clay core stood to a fraction of the 150-metre (492 feet) height it is supposed to reach, the gravel buttresses even lower.
The two dams were supposed to produce at least 890 gigawatt hours per year (GWh), enough to power tens of thousands of homes, but the Acheloos continues to flow around them through diversion tunnels.
This is because Mesohora and Sykia, along with two other hydroelectric dams on which construction had not started, were part of a system with a dual purpose. They were designed to sustain enormous reservoirs – almost three-quarters of a billion tonnes between them – in order to divert 600 million tonnes of water each year to the Thessaly plain, Greece’s biggest farming region. A 17km (10.5 miles) tunnel bored under the Pindos mountains for the purpose, but never lined with concrete, is now in danger of collapsing.
Unsustainable farming practices have led Thessaly to pump its underground aquifer almost dry, and desertification now threatens this region of one million people. Since 2000, the Council of State, Greece’s top administrative court, has repeatedly ruled that cultural and environmental impacts of the Acheloos diversion have not been properly assessed, bringing works to a halt. That left more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money literally sunk in the ground.
Now amid rising temperatures linked to climate change and the obligation to meet clean energy goals, the conservative New Democracy government tells Al Jazeera it is reviving the dam projects as part of a plan to meet both Greece’s decarbonisation targets and its irrigation needs.
“The works of the upper Acheloos will be completed in the next five to six years, based on new and improved studies,” the environment ministry told Al Jazeera in written answers.
Acheloos, Greece – In some of the remotest gorges of western Greece, at the ends of roads that wind like small intestines, sit the country’s biggest white elephant projects.
The Mesohora dam, completed 20 years ago, towers across a ravine cut by the Acheloos river, but its reservoir is empty.
Downstream lies the unfinished Sykia dam.
When work crews departed in 2009, its clay core stood to a fraction of the 150-metre (492 feet) height it is supposed to reach, the gravel buttresses even lower.
The two dams were supposed to produce at least 890 gigawatt hours per year (GWh), enough to power tens of thousands of homes, but the Acheloos continues to flow around them through diversion tunnels.
This is because Mesohora and Sykia, along with two other hydroelectric dams on which construction had not started, were part of a system with a dual purpose. They were designed to sustain enormous reservoirs – almost three-quarters of a billion tonnes between them – in order to divert 600 million tonnes of water each year to the Thessaly plain, Greece’s biggest farming region. A 17km (10.5 miles) tunnel bored under the Pindos mountains for the purpose, but never lined with concrete, is now in danger of collapsing.
Unsustainable farming practices have led Thessaly to pump its underground aquifer almost dry, and desertification now threatens this region of one million people. Since 2000, the Council of State, Greece’s top administrative court, has repeatedly ruled that cultural and environmental impacts of the Acheloos diversion have not been properly assessed, bringing works to a halt. That left more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money literally sunk in the ground.
Now amid rising temperatures linked to climate change and the obligation to meet clean energy goals, the conservative New Democracy government tells Al Jazeera it is reviving the dam projects as part of a plan to meet both Greece’s decarbonisation targets and its irrigation needs.
“The works of the upper Acheloos will be completed in the next five to six years, based on new and improved studies,” the environment ministry told Al Jazeera in written answers.
The upper Acheloos river is also known as Aspropotamos, or white river, because of the limestone pebbles that form the river bed [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently said the government will launch public-private project funding for more than a billion dollars’ worth of irrigation infrastructure works, including dams, lakes and pipe networks.
“The government plans to construct 21 major irrigation works,” Mitsotakis told a gathering of regional prefects on November 9. “These are of paramount importance for a country that invests in primary industry and wants its farmers not to have to worry about their primary resource, which is water.”
The Acheloos projects are not included in the current round of funding.
Turning to face the sun and wind
Given its ample sun and wind, Greece is a green energy laggard in Europe.
In 2019, it produced just 29 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, compared with an EU average of 34 percent.
Portugal, a country of similar wealth and population to Greece, already produces two-thirds of its electric power from renewable sources.
Greece’s straggling is partly because its main energy producer, the Public Power Corporation (PPC), has for 20 years fought tooth and nail to maintain coal as its main energy source. That left the production of electricity from renewables and gas entirely in the hands of private producers. The result of the PPC’s policy was that its share of the electricity market shrank over two decades from 100 percent to 40 percent.
Now, the PPC is turning itself around and turbocharging the green energy revolution.
The beginning of this turnaround came in September 2019, when Mitsotakis announced that the PPC would phase out coal by 2028. At September’s UN General Assembly, he suggested that could now happen as early as 2025.
“We have very poor quality [coal], and have to burn a lot of it to produce the energy we need,” says energy expert Miltiadis Aslanoglou. “Natural gas produces about 300-350 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. A good quality coal produces about 800 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. Our lignite coal produces 1,200 grammes of carbon dioxdie megajoule in the best-case scenario.”
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently said the government will launch public-private project funding for more than a billion dollars’ worth of irrigation infrastructure works, including dams, lakes and pipe networks.
“The government plans to construct 21 major irrigation works,” Mitsotakis told a gathering of regional prefects on November 9. “These are of paramount importance for a country that invests in primary industry and wants its farmers not to have to worry about their primary resource, which is water.”
The Acheloos projects are not included in the current round of funding.
Turning to face the sun and wind
Given its ample sun and wind, Greece is a green energy laggard in Europe.
In 2019, it produced just 29 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, compared with an EU average of 34 percent.
Portugal, a country of similar wealth and population to Greece, already produces two-thirds of its electric power from renewable sources.
Greece’s straggling is partly because its main energy producer, the Public Power Corporation (PPC), has for 20 years fought tooth and nail to maintain coal as its main energy source. That left the production of electricity from renewables and gas entirely in the hands of private producers. The result of the PPC’s policy was that its share of the electricity market shrank over two decades from 100 percent to 40 percent.
Now, the PPC is turning itself around and turbocharging the green energy revolution.
The beginning of this turnaround came in September 2019, when Mitsotakis announced that the PPC would phase out coal by 2028. At September’s UN General Assembly, he suggested that could now happen as early as 2025.
“We have very poor quality [coal], and have to burn a lot of it to produce the energy we need,” says energy expert Miltiadis Aslanoglou. “Natural gas produces about 300-350 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. A good quality coal produces about 800 grammes of carbon dioxide per megajoule. Our lignite coal produces 1,200 grammes of carbon dioxdie megajoule in the best-case scenario.”
Greece’s Ptolemaida I-IV power station, which burns coal, is to be decommissioned by 2023 under broader plans to phase out use of the energy source within the next decade [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
That has led to skyrocketing costs for the PPC, which drew 27 percent of its power from coal last year, and has to buy the right to pollute from Europe’s carbon market. Those polluting rights will burden its balance sheet by about $1bn this year because the cost of carbon permits has more than doubled to more than $70 per tonne since January.
The PPC this year announced an 8.4bn-euro ($9.46bn) investment plan to acquire or create 9.1GW of renewable generating capacity by 2026. This would effectively double the PPC’s current generating capacity, and allow it to shut down its remaining lignite-burning plants. It has raised some of the capital through a capital share increase and by spinning off 49 percent of the country’s low-voltage network, the Hellenic Distribution Network Operator.
The rising cost of carbon permits has been one driver of change. Privatisation has been the other. The Independent Power Transmission Operator, Greece’s high-voltage transmission network, was spun off from the state-controlled PPC during Greece’s economic crisis in 2011, and has since attracted investors.
The result is a $5bn project, currently under way, connecting the biggest Aegean islands to the grid via undersea cables by the end of the decade. This allows the PPC to stop generating electricity from diesel generators on the islands, and reduce the carbon it pumps into the atmosphere each year by almost three million tonnes – about a fifth of its emissions.
By 2030, renewables are expected to exceed 61 percent of Greece’s electricity mix, surpassing EU targets, according to its latest National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).
That has led to skyrocketing costs for the PPC, which drew 27 percent of its power from coal last year, and has to buy the right to pollute from Europe’s carbon market. Those polluting rights will burden its balance sheet by about $1bn this year because the cost of carbon permits has more than doubled to more than $70 per tonne since January.
The PPC this year announced an 8.4bn-euro ($9.46bn) investment plan to acquire or create 9.1GW of renewable generating capacity by 2026. This would effectively double the PPC’s current generating capacity, and allow it to shut down its remaining lignite-burning plants. It has raised some of the capital through a capital share increase and by spinning off 49 percent of the country’s low-voltage network, the Hellenic Distribution Network Operator.
The rising cost of carbon permits has been one driver of change. Privatisation has been the other. The Independent Power Transmission Operator, Greece’s high-voltage transmission network, was spun off from the state-controlled PPC during Greece’s economic crisis in 2011, and has since attracted investors.
The result is a $5bn project, currently under way, connecting the biggest Aegean islands to the grid via undersea cables by the end of the decade. This allows the PPC to stop generating electricity from diesel generators on the islands, and reduce the carbon it pumps into the atmosphere each year by almost three million tonnes – about a fifth of its emissions.
By 2030, renewables are expected to exceed 61 percent of Greece’s electricity mix, surpassing EU targets, according to its latest National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP).
The Acheloos flows around the construction site of the Sykia dam through a diversion tunnel [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
Local resistance
Although Greeks overwhelmingly support decarbonisation, they often oppose energy projects in their back yard. Local opposition has killed large wind farm projects on the islands of Serifos and Skyros, and it was a campaign coordinated by environmental groups that stopped the Acheloos dams.
Many of the villagers of Mesohora, which would be flooded if the dam reservoir were filled, are still against the project. The problem, says Panayotis Kotronis, who served as Mesohora community president in the 1980s, is that irrigation priorities sullied green energy priorities.
“This began as a small hydro-electric dam that would go to a height of 80 metres [260 feet],” he says. “The lake would not then flood the village, only about 10 houses. Then, as part of the Acheloos diversion project, it reached 135 metres [443 feet].”
The higher water level caused new problems, says Kotronis. “Now the lake would reach just below the village square. But the top half of the village will also slide into the lake. The studies say there will be slippage.”
The PPC, which built the dams, proposed relocating Mesohora entirely, but a new site was never settled upon.
Locals also have environmental concerns, reflecting growing scepticism about dams.
“The river’s flow is already falling,” says Yiorgos Sakkas, who was community president in 2002-10. “When it doesn’t rain, it’s just a stream. The water flows so slowly it looks green from all the algae that grow in it. We used to call it aspropotamos [the white river].”
Argyro Karayiorgou, a Mesohora resident since birth, dismisses the broader national goal of producing clean energy. “Destroying one environment to save another?” she asks. “If you destroy enough small environments, you destroy the Earth.”
Other Mesohora residents do see the broader good. Konstantinos Kotronis, the nephew of Panayotis, who also served as community president, points to the current energy crisis.
“If a country isn’t energy-autonomous, this has an impact on its people. Energy becomes expensive … [Russian President Vladimir] Putin closes the tap and gas prices shoot up,” he says
.
Konstantinos Kotronis is in favour of the Mesohora dam being operated [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
In January 2009, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom shut down gas flow to Europe through Ukraine because of a disagreement over arrears owed by the Ukrainian gas operator. Europe relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas, and southeast Europe is almost a Russian monopoly. The 2009 shutdown led to power outages, factory stoppages and unheated homes in the region, and was a wake-up call for Europe’s energy security.
Self-reliance was the goal when the PPC was founded. It drew on water and coal, both abundant in Greece.
Western Greece became the birthplace of the country’s renewable energy industry, because it receives most of the country’s rainfall, as weather systems move from west to east.
This is where the country’s first dam was built, on the Arachthos river system, in 1950. In the 1960s, three dams went up on the lower reaches of the Acheloos. The PPC drew almost 14 percent of its power from hydroelectricity last year, and most of that came from the Arachthos and Acheloos.
The completion of the Mesohora and Sykia dams is bound to stir controversy anew, but this time local residents may not be an insuperable obstacle. That is because a 2018 law encouraged Greeks to place solar panels on the roofs of the country’s 4.5 million homes, increasing citizen participation in green energy.
A recent study by the environmental think-tank GreenTank revealed that some 466 megawatts of capacity have already been installed, representing four percent of the country’s installed renewable electricity capacity, and a further 4,235MW have been applied for.
“I’m putting solar panels up on my roof [in Trikala],” says Konstantinos Kotronis. “When I’m choosing an environmentally-friendly form of energy at home, I can’t say I’m against it elsewhere.”
In January 2009, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom shut down gas flow to Europe through Ukraine because of a disagreement over arrears owed by the Ukrainian gas operator. Europe relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas, and southeast Europe is almost a Russian monopoly. The 2009 shutdown led to power outages, factory stoppages and unheated homes in the region, and was a wake-up call for Europe’s energy security.
Self-reliance was the goal when the PPC was founded. It drew on water and coal, both abundant in Greece.
Western Greece became the birthplace of the country’s renewable energy industry, because it receives most of the country’s rainfall, as weather systems move from west to east.
This is where the country’s first dam was built, on the Arachthos river system, in 1950. In the 1960s, three dams went up on the lower reaches of the Acheloos. The PPC drew almost 14 percent of its power from hydroelectricity last year, and most of that came from the Arachthos and Acheloos.
The completion of the Mesohora and Sykia dams is bound to stir controversy anew, but this time local residents may not be an insuperable obstacle. That is because a 2018 law encouraged Greeks to place solar panels on the roofs of the country’s 4.5 million homes, increasing citizen participation in green energy.
A recent study by the environmental think-tank GreenTank revealed that some 466 megawatts of capacity have already been installed, representing four percent of the country’s installed renewable electricity capacity, and a further 4,235MW have been applied for.
“I’m putting solar panels up on my roof [in Trikala],” says Konstantinos Kotronis. “When I’m choosing an environmentally-friendly form of energy at home, I can’t say I’m against it elsewhere.”
A mural near the Mesohora dam calls residents to a ‘struggle for land and for freedom’ – many of the surrounding villages have opposed the damming of the Acheloos [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Greek official: ‘Investing in natural gas is both rational and unavoidable’
By Kira Taylor | EURACTIV.com
Dec 7, 2021 (updated: Dec 8, 2021)
"Investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term," said Alexandra Sdoukou, the Secretary General for Energy and Mineral Resources in Greece
Greece is transitioning away from coal, but investments in natural gas are “rational and unavoidable” because they are needed to support renewable energy, Alexandra Sdoukou told EURACTIV.
Alexandra Sdoukou is Secretary General for Energy at the Greek Ministry of Environment. She spoke to EURACTIV’s Kira Taylor about the energy transition in Greece.
Greece is planning to phase out coal by 2028 at the latest – how much of that will be replaced by wind energy? Will it be offshore/onshore/floating? What is the timeline for that?
Indeed, Greece has announced and is already implementing an ambitious plan to move away from lignite coal. This plan consists of the decommissioning of all currently operating lignite-fired generation assets until 2023 and the phase-out of all lignite production by 2028.
To offset this extensive decommissioning of thermal capacity, we rely heavily upon new renewable energy source (RES) capacity additions in our generation mix. According to our National Energy and Climate Plan, Greece will double its wind and solar PV capacity until 2030, with RES contributing up to 64% to the country’s electricity production.
Moreover, the European Commission approved a few days ago our new RES Auctions support scheme for 2021-2025. The scheme will provide incentives of approximately €2,27 billion for the addition of 4.2GW of new RES capacity.
The new capacity will be allocated through joint technology auctions, so there’s no concrete administrative allocation between technologies. Be that as it may, it is foreseen that no technology will take up more than 70% of the total capacity auctioned, so at least 30% is guaranteed for each technology in order to avoid “technology monoculture” in our RES mix.
Moreover, an additional 2GW of offshore wind has been recently announced by the Prime Minister as a target for 2030; a discreet support scheme for this offshore wind capacity will be notified to the Commission in the first semester of 2022. Finally, significant interest has been shown in concluding merchant Power Purchase Agreements for new RES capacity, outside the aforementioned support schemes.
In light of the above, it is evident that Greece will continue to rely on wind power, both on- and offshore, as a key element, a cornerstone of its green transition strategy in the coming decade.
What challenges need to be overcome to allow the needed growth of wind power? Are there any issues with people’s perception of wind turbines?
In Greece, as well as in most parts of the world where wind power has achieved a mainstream status in electricity production, awareness of this technology increases in the general public. And, as many more people become aware of the many positives of clean and cheap energy from the wind, we also see that “not-in-my-back-yard” concerns also increase.
As policymakers, we need to take these concerns into consideration and address them honestly, with fact-based analyses and scientific evidence. We also need to put in place a series of measures that instil trust and incentivize the local populations that are asked to “host” electricity production units.
In Greece, we have a very thorough licensing process that examines numerous environmental criteria and ensures respect for both natural and anthropogenic environment. Moreover, we are in the process of fully revising our spatial planning framework, to adapt to the current realities of new RES technologies.
Moreover, a system of financial benefits for municipalities and local populations is in place to ensure that they are compensated for the establishment of RES units in their territories; this system is, again, under reexamination and optimization to make sure that the financial benefits RES producers provide for local communities and residents are more visible and transparent. This combination of safeguards and incentives can help address most concerns, at least those that are offered in good faith.
At the end of the day, though, suitable sites for the development of wind power assets are limited on land. That is why we recently concluded (and will soon put up for public consultation) a comprehensive framework for the development of offshore wind power, with a controlled and planned deployment of offshore wind on carefully selected sea plots. Moreover, we are considering ways to increase the output of already selected onshore sites through the repowering of existing, older installations with new, more efficient turbines.
Those measures will decrease the pressure for the identification of new suitable sites without jeopardising Greece’s ambitious plans for doubling its installed RES capacity by 2030.
What are the biggest challenges for Greece in the shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy?
Our plan to phase out lignite coal at such a rapid pace comes with a number of unique challenges, both technical and socioeconomic.
From the technical perspective, a complete rethinking of our energy sector is needed. Apart from plans to replace the obsolete lignite-fired units with new RES capacity, a need for flexibility arises.
This need is being addressed through a number of targeted measures to support the deployment of new natural gas assets, to promote storage, both in the form of batteries and of pumped hydro, and to increase demand-side response.
Apart from those measures, though, a broad programme to increase energy efficiency is underway, which includes focused sub-programs for residences, public buildings and commercial/industrial usage.
Energy efficiency is crucial in making a smooth transition to a sustainable energy mix, and we include it in our strategic priorities, as is evident both in our N.E.C.P. (which adopts targets for energy efficiency much higher than the average E.U. target) and in our Recovery and Resilience Plan (which allocates approximately 50% of our “Green Pillar” grants to energy efficiency Actions).
The challenges associated with de-lignitisation go beyond the technical. Regions in Western Macedonia as well as in Central Peloponnese have hosted lignite mining and electricity production activities for decades and rely heavily upon revenues associated with these operations.
The phase-out of lignite coal will drastically change the way of life in those regions; it is our job as policymakers to make sure that this change is for the better. That is why we have introduced a Just Transition Plan for the affected regions that will ensure jobs, rehabilitation of affected territories and new developmental opportunities for those regions and their residents.
Our goal is to turn this challenge into an opportunity and to make sure that, at the end of this process, the main beneficiaries of the energy transition are the populations of the areas in transition, with tangible positive effects in their income, their health, their prosperity and way of life.
How could Greece enable the import of renewable energy from places like Africa?
Greece stands at the crossroads of three continents and it is our vision to facilitate the transport of energy between these continents.
A dimension of this vision is a planned Subsea Cable Interconnection between Greece and Egypt. Recently, political endorsement to this ambitious project has been provided by the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Minister of Environment and Energy of Greece, Kostas Skrekas, and the Egyptian Electricity Minister, Mohamed Shaker.
Of course, the technical challenges associated with such a demanding project are many. Despite that, we are confident in Greece’s experience in subsea interconnections, which includes the already active interconnection between the Peloponnese and Crete (the longest AC interconnection in the world at 174km and 1000m depth) and the even longer- interconnection between Attika and Crete, which is currently being built.
This experience, along with the close cooperation and share of knowledge with our Egyptian counterparts, I think will be sufficient to ensure the project’s technical viability.
Greece has been very active in the discussion about energy prices, what is the issue in Greece and how can it be solved?
The recent price spike experienced across Europe is the result of a “perfect storm”. As such, it is far from a Greek issue; indeed, both the causes and the effects of this “perfect storm” are made evident across European energy markets, both for natural gas and for electricity.
In the short term, our priority regarding the energy price spike is to alleviate its results for the consumers. That is why we have introduced a very generous support program for end-users, particularly residential consumers and small businesses, in order to absorb most of the adverse effects of the increased prices.
In the long term though, we are confident that the prices of electricity will drop as the energy mix of our Continent moves towards renewable energy, what is today universally accepted as the cheapest form of energy available.
The process towards the energy transition will not be without challenges and obstacles and we will remain alert to address those when and as they arise, but we remain confident that once this process advances, we will become more resilient against imported fuels and price volatility and will enjoy clean, but also cheap and abundant, energy from the sun and the wind.
There has been some criticism that Greece is replacing its coal capacity with fossil gas, including investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, what is your response to this?
We all know that an electricity system relying on high penetration of renewables requires stable baseload production as well as increased flexibility. Greece is currently implementing a widespread programme to procure significant amounts of storage, amounting to 1.4 GW, in the coming years and in the form both of batteries and of pumped hydropower.
This programme though still has some years until its full completion. Moreover, Greece has no serious alternative to add new dispatchable sources of generation to its production, such as nuclear power or major new hydroelectric generation.
To this effect, investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term.
Having said that, all new natural gas infrastructure to be constructed in Greece, including a much needed strategic gas storage facility, is designed to be hydrogen-ready and able to accommodate low carbon and renewable gases, in order to avoid.
By Kira Taylor | EURACTIV.com
Dec 7, 2021 (updated: Dec 8, 2021)
"Investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term," said Alexandra Sdoukou, the Secretary General for Energy and Mineral Resources in Greece
Greece is transitioning away from coal, but investments in natural gas are “rational and unavoidable” because they are needed to support renewable energy, Alexandra Sdoukou told EURACTIV.
Alexandra Sdoukou is Secretary General for Energy at the Greek Ministry of Environment. She spoke to EURACTIV’s Kira Taylor about the energy transition in Greece.
Greece is planning to phase out coal by 2028 at the latest – how much of that will be replaced by wind energy? Will it be offshore/onshore/floating? What is the timeline for that?
Indeed, Greece has announced and is already implementing an ambitious plan to move away from lignite coal. This plan consists of the decommissioning of all currently operating lignite-fired generation assets until 2023 and the phase-out of all lignite production by 2028.
To offset this extensive decommissioning of thermal capacity, we rely heavily upon new renewable energy source (RES) capacity additions in our generation mix. According to our National Energy and Climate Plan, Greece will double its wind and solar PV capacity until 2030, with RES contributing up to 64% to the country’s electricity production.
Moreover, the European Commission approved a few days ago our new RES Auctions support scheme for 2021-2025. The scheme will provide incentives of approximately €2,27 billion for the addition of 4.2GW of new RES capacity.
The new capacity will be allocated through joint technology auctions, so there’s no concrete administrative allocation between technologies. Be that as it may, it is foreseen that no technology will take up more than 70% of the total capacity auctioned, so at least 30% is guaranteed for each technology in order to avoid “technology monoculture” in our RES mix.
Moreover, an additional 2GW of offshore wind has been recently announced by the Prime Minister as a target for 2030; a discreet support scheme for this offshore wind capacity will be notified to the Commission in the first semester of 2022. Finally, significant interest has been shown in concluding merchant Power Purchase Agreements for new RES capacity, outside the aforementioned support schemes.
In light of the above, it is evident that Greece will continue to rely on wind power, both on- and offshore, as a key element, a cornerstone of its green transition strategy in the coming decade.
What challenges need to be overcome to allow the needed growth of wind power? Are there any issues with people’s perception of wind turbines?
In Greece, as well as in most parts of the world where wind power has achieved a mainstream status in electricity production, awareness of this technology increases in the general public. And, as many more people become aware of the many positives of clean and cheap energy from the wind, we also see that “not-in-my-back-yard” concerns also increase.
As policymakers, we need to take these concerns into consideration and address them honestly, with fact-based analyses and scientific evidence. We also need to put in place a series of measures that instil trust and incentivize the local populations that are asked to “host” electricity production units.
In Greece, we have a very thorough licensing process that examines numerous environmental criteria and ensures respect for both natural and anthropogenic environment. Moreover, we are in the process of fully revising our spatial planning framework, to adapt to the current realities of new RES technologies.
Moreover, a system of financial benefits for municipalities and local populations is in place to ensure that they are compensated for the establishment of RES units in their territories; this system is, again, under reexamination and optimization to make sure that the financial benefits RES producers provide for local communities and residents are more visible and transparent. This combination of safeguards and incentives can help address most concerns, at least those that are offered in good faith.
At the end of the day, though, suitable sites for the development of wind power assets are limited on land. That is why we recently concluded (and will soon put up for public consultation) a comprehensive framework for the development of offshore wind power, with a controlled and planned deployment of offshore wind on carefully selected sea plots. Moreover, we are considering ways to increase the output of already selected onshore sites through the repowering of existing, older installations with new, more efficient turbines.
Those measures will decrease the pressure for the identification of new suitable sites without jeopardising Greece’s ambitious plans for doubling its installed RES capacity by 2030.
What are the biggest challenges for Greece in the shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy?
Our plan to phase out lignite coal at such a rapid pace comes with a number of unique challenges, both technical and socioeconomic.
From the technical perspective, a complete rethinking of our energy sector is needed. Apart from plans to replace the obsolete lignite-fired units with new RES capacity, a need for flexibility arises.
This need is being addressed through a number of targeted measures to support the deployment of new natural gas assets, to promote storage, both in the form of batteries and of pumped hydro, and to increase demand-side response.
Apart from those measures, though, a broad programme to increase energy efficiency is underway, which includes focused sub-programs for residences, public buildings and commercial/industrial usage.
Energy efficiency is crucial in making a smooth transition to a sustainable energy mix, and we include it in our strategic priorities, as is evident both in our N.E.C.P. (which adopts targets for energy efficiency much higher than the average E.U. target) and in our Recovery and Resilience Plan (which allocates approximately 50% of our “Green Pillar” grants to energy efficiency Actions).
The challenges associated with de-lignitisation go beyond the technical. Regions in Western Macedonia as well as in Central Peloponnese have hosted lignite mining and electricity production activities for decades and rely heavily upon revenues associated with these operations.
The phase-out of lignite coal will drastically change the way of life in those regions; it is our job as policymakers to make sure that this change is for the better. That is why we have introduced a Just Transition Plan for the affected regions that will ensure jobs, rehabilitation of affected territories and new developmental opportunities for those regions and their residents.
Our goal is to turn this challenge into an opportunity and to make sure that, at the end of this process, the main beneficiaries of the energy transition are the populations of the areas in transition, with tangible positive effects in their income, their health, their prosperity and way of life.
How could Greece enable the import of renewable energy from places like Africa?
Greece stands at the crossroads of three continents and it is our vision to facilitate the transport of energy between these continents.
A dimension of this vision is a planned Subsea Cable Interconnection between Greece and Egypt. Recently, political endorsement to this ambitious project has been provided by the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Minister of Environment and Energy of Greece, Kostas Skrekas, and the Egyptian Electricity Minister, Mohamed Shaker.
Of course, the technical challenges associated with such a demanding project are many. Despite that, we are confident in Greece’s experience in subsea interconnections, which includes the already active interconnection between the Peloponnese and Crete (the longest AC interconnection in the world at 174km and 1000m depth) and the even longer- interconnection between Attika and Crete, which is currently being built.
This experience, along with the close cooperation and share of knowledge with our Egyptian counterparts, I think will be sufficient to ensure the project’s technical viability.
Greece has been very active in the discussion about energy prices, what is the issue in Greece and how can it be solved?
The recent price spike experienced across Europe is the result of a “perfect storm”. As such, it is far from a Greek issue; indeed, both the causes and the effects of this “perfect storm” are made evident across European energy markets, both for natural gas and for electricity.
In the short term, our priority regarding the energy price spike is to alleviate its results for the consumers. That is why we have introduced a very generous support program for end-users, particularly residential consumers and small businesses, in order to absorb most of the adverse effects of the increased prices.
In the long term though, we are confident that the prices of electricity will drop as the energy mix of our Continent moves towards renewable energy, what is today universally accepted as the cheapest form of energy available.
The process towards the energy transition will not be without challenges and obstacles and we will remain alert to address those when and as they arise, but we remain confident that once this process advances, we will become more resilient against imported fuels and price volatility and will enjoy clean, but also cheap and abundant, energy from the sun and the wind.
There has been some criticism that Greece is replacing its coal capacity with fossil gas, including investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, what is your response to this?
We all know that an electricity system relying on high penetration of renewables requires stable baseload production as well as increased flexibility. Greece is currently implementing a widespread programme to procure significant amounts of storage, amounting to 1.4 GW, in the coming years and in the form both of batteries and of pumped hydropower.
This programme though still has some years until its full completion. Moreover, Greece has no serious alternative to add new dispatchable sources of generation to its production, such as nuclear power or major new hydroelectric generation.
To this effect, investing in natural gas as a fuel that will cover baseload demand and will increase flexibility is both rational and unavoidable, at least for the medium term.
Having said that, all new natural gas infrastructure to be constructed in Greece, including a much needed strategic gas storage facility, is designed to be hydrogen-ready and able to accommodate low carbon and renewable gases, in order to avoid.
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