Renewable energy meets entire Greece's power demand for the first time

Greece met its energy demands from only renewable sources of energy for a period of five hours on Friday, October 7, PV Tech reported. The country's independent power transmission operator (IPTO) confirmed this was the first time that Greece had achieved this feat.

Back in the U.S., the state of California has managed to reach this landmark milestone a couple of times this year. However, Greece's achievement is remarkable as the region is also fighting off a self-imposed ban on using Russia-supplied gas, in the wake of the conflict in Ukraine.

Countries in Europe have had to push back their decarbonization plans after Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. The European Union wants to reduce its reliance on Russian gas and has turned to coal and other fossil fuels to meet its energy demands.

How much energy did renewables contribute?

In such a scenario, Greece's push toward renewables is commendable and captured in an analysis conducted by Green Tank, an Athens-based environmental think tank.

In a Twitter thread shared in July, the think tank reported that Greece's electricity production from renewables had exceeded any other energy source.

2⃣/ For the first time as well, https://t.co/wb8EzDzSL0

— The Green Tank (@The_GreenTank) ) July 28, 2022

In another tweet, the think tank noted that Greece's electricity production from fossil gas had marginally increased in 2022, even as renewables continued to rise and lignite burning was at an all-time low. Renewable energy's contribution to Greece's power requirement reached 46 percent in the eight months up to August this year, as against 42 percent in 2021.

Building upon this good work, the country produced a record high of 3,106 MWh of energy at 8 o'clock GMT on October 7, while the entire country was on renewable energy for a period of five hours.

Greece goes green

Greece has been building its solar energy generation capacity for the past few years and the market is poised to take off as corporations are looking for renewable offtake agreements in Europe.

The EU has also approved a US$2.5 billion grant that will support the installation of another 4.2 GW of renewable energy capacity in the country. The grant is intended to support the production of electricity from renewable sources such as solar and solar plus storage inside and outside Greece.

"With the interconnections implemented by IPTO on land and sea, new electrical capacity is created for even greater renewable energy sources penetration that will make our energy mix even greener in the coming years,” the IPTO said in a statement.

Greece has plans to attract over US429 billion in government and private investments as it looks to increase its renewable energy capacities up from 10 GW today to up to 25 GW by 2030. Analysts, however, think that the country will achieve this target sooner, Reuters said in its report.