Of the 2,562 MW of energy community projects that have been connected to the grid, only 4.4% are self-generation projects, while just 61 new energy community project applications have been submitted over the last 2.5 years. At the same time, self-generation capacity has surpassed 1.15 GW, but its growth has slowed further, with only 1,033 new applications submitted during the first four months of 2026.
Energy communities and self-generation are the main tools enabling citizens, local communities, and small businesses to actively participate in the energy transition. However, the latest data point to a continuing slowdown, both in the development of new projects and in the implementation of existing applications. The Green Tank’s 9th review of energy communities and self-generation in Greece analyses the latest available data from HEDNO, IPTO and GEMI, highlighting the most important trends.
The key findings are summarised below:
Energy communities
- 2,541 energy communities across all legal forms: Of these, 2,334 remain energy communities established under the original framework of Law 4513/2018.
- New investments have effectively stalled: Between January 2024 and April 2026, only 61 new energy community project applications were submitted, highlighting a significant decline in investment interest.
- Grid connections in low and medium voltage continue at a very slow pace: The capacity of electrified energy community projects reached 1,483.4 MW (30.6% of all applications), just 18.4 MW higher than in September 2025.
- Faster progress in high voltage: A total of 1,012 projects with a combined capacity of 1,072.6 MW have been electrified. However, these belong to only 103 energy communities and often involve large commercial projects that have been split into smaller units.
- Commercial projects dominate: Of the 3,069 electrified energy community projects with a total capacity of 2,562 MW across all voltage levels, only 221 projects, corresponding to 114.1 MW, are self-generation projects. In other words, just 4.4% of connected capacity directly serves the energy needs of energy community members.
- Central Macedonia leads the country: It hosts the largest number of energy communities (712), the highest electrified capacity (367.9 MW), and the highest cancelled capacity of low- and medium-voltage projects (733.8 MW).
- Western Macedonia holds two negative records: The region has the highest ratio of cancelled to electrified projects (3.7 to 1), while 89.7% of the cancelled capacity concerns projects that had previously received a notification of connection unavailability from HEDNO.
Self-generation
- Growth continues to decelerate: Total operational self-generation capacity reached 1,155.5 MW, an increase of only 82.9 MW compared to September 2025.
- Fewer new applications: In 2025, 5,776 new self-generation project applications were submitted, while only 1,033 additional applications were submitted during the first four months of 2026.
- Slow transition to net billing: Although 92.3% of the capacity of new applications submitted after the introduction of the new schemes concerns simultaneous and virtual simultaneous net billing projects, the capacity of projects already connected under these schemes remains limited, at just 118.1 MW (10.2% of total self-generation capacity). Of this, only 21.8 MW relates to applications submitted after the implementing ministerial decision entered into force on 2 October 2024.
- Projects ready for funding in Just Transition areas: In areas eligible for support under the Just Development Transition Programme 2021–2027, there are 15.6 MW of pending projects with signed connection agreements and an additional 42.9 MW of less mature virtual net metering and virtual simultaneous net billing projects.
- Available grid capacity is running out: The combined capacity of operational and pending self-generation projects has reached 1,887 MW, approaching the 2 GW of grid capacity reserved for self-generation projects under Law 5037/2023.
“At a time when Greece has some of the highest retail electricity prices in Europe, citizens are finding it increasingly difficult to make use of the alternative available to them: producing the electricity they consume themselves. The latest data show that self-generation is advancing at a snail’s pace, while commercial projects dominate energy communities, undermining the social and participatory character that these schemes were originally designed to promote. If citizens, municipalities and small and medium-sized enterprises are to play a meaningful role in the energy transition, urgent improvements are needed to the problematic net billing framework, along with an increase in available grid capacity and targeted financial support for self-generation and energy community projects,” said Nikos Mantzaris, Lead Policy Analyst at The Green Tank.
Notes to editors:
- The analysis is based on the latest available data from GEMI (May 2026), HEDNO for low- and medium-voltage projects (April 2026), and IPTO for high-voltage projects (April 2026).
- The full report, “Energy Communities & Self-Generation in Greece #9”, is available here.
