Yesterday’s news report by the Greek news media in.gr titled “Entrepreneurship 2023 – RES: The first source of energy in Greece” records the progress of renewables in electricity production based on the findings of The Green Tank’s analyses. The report notes that in the first eight months of 2023, renewables were the first source of electricity (14,224 GWh), while renewables together with large hydro had a share of 56.7%, exceeding the corresponding performance of 2022 in the same period by almost 8 percentage points (48.7%).
As also noted in the report, in the first 8 months of 2023, renewables exceeded fossil fuels (lignite and fossil gas combined) by almost 1.5 TWh. Adding large hydro, then clean energy in the 8 months of 2023 exceeded fossil fuels by almost 4 TWh.
As for the data specifically for August, they confirm the increasing trend of monthly electricity production from renewables with a historical monthly electricity production record of 2,231 GWh
Comparing Greece and the EU-27, the report notes that the country ranks 4th in the increase of electricity production from clean energy (RES and large hydro) among the 17 member states that have lignite or coal in their electricity production mix. It also cites The Green Tank’s finding that Greece is one of only 4 Member States without nuclear power that had electricity production from clean energy sources surpassing that from fossil fuels in the first 8 months of 2023.
The data therefore show that Greece is on a trajectory of a complete decarbonization of the electricity sector by 2035.
“Greece now plays a leading role at European level in the use of renewable energy sources for electricity production, with already beneficial results in reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, their future is far from guaranteed. Problems with the spatial planning, the lack of grid and storage infrastructure as well as the plans for new fossil gas plants are obstacles that need to be overcome in order to fully decarbonize the electricity sector by the middle of the next decade”, comments Nikos Mantzaris for the Greek news media in.gr.
The news report titled “Entrepreneurship 2023 – RES: The first source of energy in Greece” was published on October 23, 2023 and is available here.
More data can be found in our recent analysis titled “Greece and the European Union 4 years after the decision to phase out lignite” and our monthly analyses on “Trends in electricity production”.
