In January 2025, 1.74 million tons were emitted from the power sector (+35.8% compared to January last year), exceeding the levels of January 2022. The top five polluters were 2 lignite and 3 fossil gas plants. The sector’s emissions are off track to meet the estimated total emissions target for 2025 (10.2 million tons), based on the final revised NECP.
The monthly emissions from each power plant in Greece are estimated based on the latest available electricity production data (January 2025 for the interconnected network and December 2024 for the non-interconnected islands) and the annual CO2 emissions from ETS (2023), following the methodology and assumptions presented here.
Carbon intensity of electricity production
In January 2025 the carbon intensity[1] was 342 g CO2/kWh, the second highest since July 2023 (359 g CO2/kWh) and 27% higher than the 2024 average (269 g CO2/kWh). The high carbon intensity is due to increased fossil fuel use in January, mainly fossil gas, which follows an increasing trend since October 2024.
Emissions per fuel
In January 2025, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants were 1.74 million tons, exceeding January 2022 levels.
They showed an increase of 35.8% (+0.46 million tons) compared to January last year. The increase came from all three fossil fuels, but mainly from fossil gas and lignite whose use for electricity production increased by 57.5% and 30.6% respectively compared to January 2024. Similarly, in terms of emissions, the largest increase was from fossil gas (+0.33 million tons or +58.3%), followed by lignite with +0.12 million tons (+21.7%) and finally oil on non-interconnected islands (+0.19 million tons or +7.2%).
Emissions from fossil gas plants accounted for more than 50% of total emissions (0.89 million tons or 51.1%). In fact, they were the highest emissions from gas plants for the month of January since 2013). Emissions from lignite production in January 2025 (0.67 million tons or 38.2% share) were much lower than the corresponding emissions before 2020 but were higher than in the two previous years (2023-2024). The share of oil plants in the non-interconnected islands was lower (0.19 million tons or 10.7%).
Emissions per thermal power plant
In terms of the distribution of emissions among power plants, Agios Dimitrios lignite power plant ranked 1st in the first month of 2025, with emissions of 0.42 million tons (63.7% of emissions from lignite-fired plants). In January, as in the last two months of 2024, three of the five units of the plant (III-V) operated with a production of 269 GWh, the ones that cover the district heating of the city of Kozani. The other lignite power plant that operated was Ptolemaida 5, emitting 0.24 million tons and was in second place in the ranking.
Three gas plants completed the top five of the largest polluters, Megalopolis V (0.16 million tons), Agios Nikolaos II (0.15 million tons), and Lavrion IV-V (0.13 million tons).
In total, emissions from fossil gas plants reached 57.2% of the emissions from thermal plants in the country’s interconnected network (lignite and fossil gas together).
In the non-interconnected islands, two out of the three oil stations located in Crete (Aterinolakkos, Linoperamata) and the oil plant in Rhodes were the top polluters with emissions of 0.043, 0.034 and 0.016 million tons respectively. Cumulatively, the top three polluting oil stations represent almost 50% of the total emissions on the non-interconnected islands. They are 12th, 13th and 16th respectively in the general ranking of all thermal power plants in the country in terms of emissions.
Sectoral emissions – comparison with NECP
According to the revised National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) submitted in January 2025 to the European Commission, emissions in the electricity sector are expected to decrease significantly in the coming years. In particular, the target for 2030 emissions is that emissisions from all three fuels should not exceed 4 million tons. This represents a significant reduction (-91%) compared to 2013, the year in which thermal plants started to bear the cost of the carbon they emitted to the Emissions Trading System (ETS).
In the final NECP the estimated emissions for 2025 are 10.2 million tons, 5.05 million tons, less than in 2024 (15.25 million tons). In January 2025, the electricity sector emitted an estimated 1.74 million tons, 17.1% of the available carbon budget for the year. This is almost double the amount that would need to be emitted in the first month of the year for the electricity sector to be on track to meet its total emissions estimate based on the NECP. The remaining carbon budget for the next 11 months of 2025 is 8.46 million tons.
You can see the evolution of the electricity sector emissions since 2013, as well as read the analyses from previous months here.
[1] Carbon intensity is defined as the ratio of emissions from the three fuels (lignite, gas and oil, including CHP) to the country’s total electricity production from the interconnected grid and the non-interconnected islands.