Sunny Greece struggles with photo voltaic vitality overload
By John HADOULIS
Kastron Viotias, Greece (AFP) June 10, 2025
In a discipline in central Greece that after grew clover and corn, upkeep employee Nikos Zigomitros deftly drives a tractor between rows of photo voltaic panels, trimming weeds beneath a blazing solar.
“Letting them develop too excessive impairs the panel efficiency,” the 52-year-old explains, wiping sweat from his forehead.
As soon as a centre of agricultural manufacturing, the world round Kastron Viotias, some 110 kilometres (70 miles) northwest of Athens, has seen photo voltaic parks mushroom over the previous 15 years, a part of a serious renewable vitality push within the nation.
Greece at the moment has 16 gigawatts of renewable vitality put in, with solar energy representing practically 10 gigawatts, together with 2.5 gigawatts that got here on line final 12 months.
The speedy development of photo voltaic is just like different international locations in Europe, the place it has overtaken coal for electrical energy manufacturing, based on local weather suppose tank Ember.
It estimates renewables have risen to account for practically half of the EU’s electrical energy manufacturing.
Greece did even higher: 55 p.c of annual consumption was lined by renewables final 12 months, with photo voltaic accounting for round 23 p.c, based on SPEF, an affiliation which unites native solar energy producers.
In 2023, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis predicted that Greece would “quickly generate 80 p.c of its electrical energy wants by way of renewables.”
However getting there’s proving difficult.
SPEF chairman Stelios Loumakis stated that the photo voltaic sector has hit a wall due to a mix of things, together with Greece’s small dimension, restricted infrastructure and delays in build up vitality storage capability.
– Saturated –
The Greek state accredited too many photovoltaic tasks during the last 5 years and the market is saturated, resulting in a “extreme manufacturing surplus” on sunny days, the 56-year-old chemical engineer and vitality advisor stated.
Greece’s nationwide grid operator in Might repeatedly ordered 1000’s of medium-sized operators to close down throughout the sunniest hours of the day to keep away from overburdening the community and triggering a blackout.
“The trick is to steadiness provide and demand. If you happen to do not do it properly, you get a blackout,” stated Nikos Mantzaris, a senior coverage analyst and accomplice on the unbiased civil organisation Inexperienced Tank.
In April, an enormous blackout of unknown origin crippled the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish authorities has stated two main energy fluctuations had been recorded within the half-hour earlier than the grid collapse, however the authorities insisted renewables had been to not blame.
“It could possibly be one thing as mundane as a defective cable,” Mantzaris stated.
– Batteries ‘essential’ –
To handle the excess, Greece is constructing battery storage capability. However catching as much as its photo voltaic electrical energy manufacturing will take years.
“The following three years shall be essential,” stated Stelios Psomas, a coverage advisor at HELAPCO, a commerce affiliation for Greek corporations producing and putting in photo voltaic panels.
Within the meantime, photo voltaic panel operators must guarantee manufacturing doesn’t outstrip capability, thereby limiting their potential earnings.
“Managing excessive shares of renewables — particularly photo voltaic — requires vital flexibility and storage options,” stated Francesca Andreolli, a senior researcher at ECCO, a local weather change suppose tank in Italy, which faces an identical drawback.
“Battery capability has turn out to be a structural necessity for the electrical energy system, by absorbing extra renewable vitality and releasing it when demand rises,” she advised AFP.
– Farm revenue –
Mimis Tsakanikas, a 51-year-old farmer in Kastron, readily admits that photo voltaic has been good to his household.
The photovoltaic farm they inbuilt 2012 at a value of 210,000 euros clears a minimum of 55,000 euros a 12 months, excess of he might hope to earn by rising greens and watermelons.
“This park sustains my residence,” he stated.
However the father of two additionally notes that the environmental steadiness has tipped in his space, with the unfold of photo voltaic installations now inflicting considerations in regards to the native microclimate.
Tsakanikas says the world has already skilled temperature rises of as much as 4.0 levels Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit), which he blames on the abundance of heat-absorbing photo voltaic panel parks within the space.
“The microclimate has positively modified, we’ve not seen frost in two years,” he advised AFP.
“(At this price) in 5 years, we’ll be cultivating bananas right here, like in Crete,” he stated.
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