Presenting to the Special Standing Committee on Environmental Protection of the Hellenic Parliament on June 25, 2025, Nikos Mantzaris, policy analyst and co-founder of The Green Tank, highlighted Greece’s remarkable progress in renewable energy (RES) and the urgent need to scale up storage infrastructure.
As he noted, “Since 2022, renewables have dominated the country’s energy mix,” with RES — including hydropower — covering 50.5% of electricity production in 2024. Meanwhile, lignite use dropped to historic lows, and for the first time, Greece became a net electricity exporter. However, fossil gas usage spiked significantly. CO₂ emissions from the power sector fell from 45 million tonnes in 2013 to about 15 million tonnes in 2023 — a 65.8% reduction — but stagnated in 2024 due to increased gas consumption. Emissions remain over four times higher than the 2030 target of 4 million tonnes.
Nikos Mantzaris placed special emphasis on self-production — small-scale RES systems designed to meet the needs of energy communities, households, farmers, municipalities, and businesses. He pointed to a consistent doubling of installed capacity each year from 2020 to 2023. However, applications slowed notably in 2024–2025 due to grid limitations and the transition from net metering to net billing, where self-produced energy is offset only when consumed in real time. “The way to increase simultaneity — and thus the efficiency of self-production — is through the installation of batteries,” he said. Yet, “batteries are expensive and burden the investment’s financial viability,” further reducing interest in new applications and underlining the need for financial support.
He also raised concerns about curtailments — RES production ‘wasted’ due to low demand during generation hours. According to IPTO data, curtailments reached 228 GWh in 2023, soared to 900 GWh in 2024, and already hit 975 GWh in the first five months of 2025. The total for the year is projected to exceed 1.8–2 TWh — over 10% of all RES production. “This issue can be mitigated — not eliminated — by energy storage systems that absorb surplus production and release it at night, when expensive gas-fired units are typically used,” he said. These systems could also lower prices on the day-ahead market, where Greece has remained among the most expensive EU countries since 2018 and well above pre-crisis levels.
As for priorities, Nikos Mantzaris stressed: “It is clear that the rollout of electricity storage systems must be accelerated.” He called for a balanced deployment of RES technologies to reduce storage needs and costs, and emphasized that supporting self-production — despite its higher per-MW cost — is vital for ensuring citizen participation in the energy transition, in line with EU legislation and the goals of a Just Transition. Citing Spain’s example — where 19 of 76 GW of solar are reserved for self-production — he recommended increasing Greece’s self-production target from 2 GW to 3 GW by 2030.
Finally, Nikos Mantzaris drew attention to underutilised funding programs, including the €41.8 million package for Just Transition areas (of which only €5.4 million has been used), and the €208 million “PV on rooftops” scheme, both hindered by strict eligibility criteria and disbursement delays — reinforcing the need to boost energy storage.
The meeting of the Special Standing Committee on Environmental Protection was chaired by Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou and focused on the critical issue of RES and energy storage. Participants included Deputy Minister for Environment and Energy Nikos Tsafos and representatives from relevant organisations: Panagiotis Papastamatiou (ELETAEN), Manolis Karapidakis (ESSAHE), Loukas Laliotis (SDSAE), and Panagiotis Mourtopallas (HELAPCO).