The energy tradition of Western Macedonia and Arcadia, Greece’s lignite regions, has driven local communities to actively participate in the Just Transition through the use of Energy Communities.
Greece’s two lignite regions differ significantly with regard to energy community development and characteristics.
Commercial Projects by Energy Communities
Western Macedonia: 295 EnComs, 169 electrified commercial projects of 113.4 MW capacity.
Arcadia: 41 EnComs, 24 electrified commercial projects of 16.9 MW capacity.
Western Macedonia: the region with the highest percentage of notification of inability to connect projects (75%).
Self-Production by Energy Communities
- Self-production projects refer to the EnComs of Law 4513/2028, while no REC or CEC projects are recorded based on the available data until December 2023 in Western Macedonia and Arcadia.
Western Macedonia: 1 electrified project of 0.03 MW capacity.
Arcadia: 18 electrified projects of 1.7 MW capacity. None of them in the lignite area of Megalopolis.
- Self-production projects are not only implemented by energy communities, but also by individual households, farmers, businesses and other actors.
- Electrified self-production projects beyond energy communities are 18.6 MW (922 projects) in Western Macedonia, while in Arcadia they are 5.2MW (268 projects).
- The Energy Community of the Municipality of Kozani is the first energy community to receive public funding of €6.7 million for 7 MW self-production projects from the Just Transition Development Program 2021-2027.