Citizens of Central Macedonia turn to self-production through energy communities

“During the energy crisis, the citizens of Central Macedonia turned to self-production through energy communities and this is reflected in the number of applications that increased by 150%”, notes Ioanna Theodosiou, policy associate of The Green Tank, in the news report by Dimitra Tagas for thesstoday.gr.

The news report titled “Central Macedonia: Turn to self-production of energy – Surge of applications but also obstacles by HEDNO” uses recent data from Green Tank’s analysis on energy communities especially in the region of Central Macedonia and maps the trends and the emerging problems.

According to The Green Tank analysis based on data from the Greek GEMI and HEDNO, in November 2022 Central Macedonia is the first region in numbers of energy communities (263), and Thessaloniki is the regional unit with the most energy communities (87). Of the installed projects, 327 are low and medium voltage RES projects for profit (241.6MW) and only 2 are virtual net metering projects aimed at meeting own needs (2MW).

The focus of the report is the rapid increase in applications from citizens for virtual net metering projects by energy communities, reaching 150% in one year and the corresponding increase in requested capacity by 48% (from 8 MW in November 2021 to 11.82 MW in November 2022). A smaller increase of 6% in applications for low and medium voltage projects that sell electricity in the market was observed in the same period.

However, the rejection of applications by HEDNO due to lack of grid availability widens the existing gap between for-profit projects and projects aimed at meeting own electricity needs thus adding significant obstacles to shielding citizens against the energy crisis. As Ioanna Theodosiou stated “it is crucial in the future to prioritise virtual net metering projects by energy communities and to support citizens and local authorities in Central Macedonia to help them tackle the energy crisis and participate in the clean energy transition”.

The news report by Dimitra Tagka was published on February 17, 2023 and is available at thesstoday.gr.

More data on energy communities in Greece and lignite regions are available at the recent Review #3 by The Green Tank.