The news report by the Athens-Macedonian News Agency and K. Voutsadakis on the 9 records broken by the energy market in 2022, which also uses the Green Tank’s analyses, led to the discussion of Nikos Mantzaris with Nikos Andritsos, Korina Georgiou and Katerina Plati in the radio show Euranet on SKAI 100.3.
The top spot of renewables in electricity production, leaving behind gas and lignite, the shift of citizens to green energy and the overachievement of the EU target for reducing fossil gas consumption were the most significant of the milestones Greece recorded in 2022. Nikos Mantzaris summarized the lessons of 2022 in two key points: first, that we can reduce our dependence from both lignite and fossil gas simultaneously and much faster than we thought and second, that we can achieve this by accelerating renewables and improving on energy efficiency and energy savings.
Regarding the change in citizens’ attitude towards renewables, Nikos Mantzaris stressed that the fossil gas price crisis, which was also transferred to electricity, showed citizens that the best shield against the crisis is energy savings and of course the deployment of renewables.
However, as he pointed out, there are still problems that trigger citizens’ reservations especially against wind farms which have been developed without a sound spatial plan and proper public consultation. Through a modern spatial sitting plan, there is a way to overcome these issues while protecting Greece’s rare biodiversity and achieving the energy and climate targets in the cheapest possible way.
The question remains as to how the country will proceed in terms of its energy planning in the coming period, which will be documented in the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), currently under revision. It is crucial to ensure that it continues to move in the direction of reducing gas consumption and developing renewable energy sources, without returning to fossil fuels.
The discussion was broadcasted live on Sunday April 23, 2023 and it is available on skairadio.gr and our YouTube channel.
You can listen to it here (in Greek):
