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Greece – Birth of a Solar Civilisation

Greece is the crossroads between Europe, the Middle East and Asia  connecting Europe with Turkey, Iran and beyond. It is also linked geographically through the Black Sea to Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus. To the north lies the Balkan Peninsula and the route into central and western Europe. However Ancient Greece was a maritime nation, when the Mediterranean and the Black Sea were the ‘centre of the world’ most of its connections were by sea and Greek sailors and traders reached as far as the British Isles. Even today Greece is a  maritime power and shipping is a key part of the economy.

The country is mountainous(80%) and has 13,625 kms of coastline (11th longest in world) and 6,000 islands of which 227 are currently inhabited. They are divided into the North Aegean, Cyclades (around Athens). Dodacanese between Crete and Turkey and the Ionian Islands in the Adriatic. 

Greece was the birthplace of modern civilisation through its city (polis) states the study of philosophy, drama and mathematics prospered and from where organised sport emanates. It was subsequently absorbed by the Roman Empire and then the Bryzantine or Eastern Roman empire. From1530 until 1830 it was occupied and mostly neglected by the Ottoman Empire. The only Greek communities who avoided occupation were the Ionian Islands, Crete and Cyprus which also had periods of occupation by the Venetians and Andalusian Arabs but only the Ionians managed to avoid  Ottoman rule throughout their history because of their position near the Adriatic. Even after 1830 the country remained unstable and it was used as a battleground in the 1st and 2nd World  Wars. A bitter civil war eventually saved Greece from becoming a communist state unlike  its northern neighbours. After another round of dictatorship in the 1970’s Greece joined the European Community and has become a wealthy middle income country(current GDP of $242 billion dollars). Indeed after the fall of communism in the Balkans, Greece became the principle investor in Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia. It even mended its fences with Turkey although they still eye each other with some hostility and Greece has the highest defence expenditure per capita in Nato.

The population is only 10,600,000 with 6 million living in the Athens and Thessaloniki metro areas.

Greece has an enormous diaspora. The Greeks have always been travellers and in their historic heyday reached as far as India, Persia, Egypt, Italy and Spain.

In the modern era Greeks migrated to North America, UK, Australia and Africa in order to escape war and poverty. 

The current population as in all Mediterranean Europe is ageing and declining with a replacement rate of only 1.44 per 1,000.  and mortality is dropping rapidly so the country is ageing rapidly.

Tourism is the major industry – Brits and Germans alone alone account for 5 million visitors per year with a grand total of 11 million in 2019. As the birthplace of the modern world, Greece has 18 UNESCO world heritage sites but tourists also come for the beautiful beaches, mountains, the food, drink and the weather.

But tourism is a labour intensive activity and this has attracted migrants from Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and  Sri Lanka and Pakistan who work in the thousands of hotels, bars and restaurants. Tourism employs 25% of the Greek workforce.  Youth unemployment remains high so many young qualified Greeks have migrated to Germany, UK and the States.

Greece has emerged from Cofid 19 (so far) with minimum casualties and is attempting to restart  its 2020 tourist season.

Electric Grid of Greece

As regards energy supplies the Public Power Corporation accounts for 85.6% of generated power. 50% comes from lignite power stations with 12% from HEP and 20% from natural gas. Most power is fed from the national grid. On the islands including Crete and Rhodes there are sixty autonomous power plants made up of 33 thermal (Steam generators driven by oil fired boilers), 2 hydro, 18 wind farms and 5 solar PV arrays. Islands close to the mainland are fed by undersea cables from the grid.

 Solar power is also rising with 10% of all power in 2018. In 2019 renewables now accounts for 20% all grid power. Helios was the sun god in ancient Greece and the ancient greeks understood the power of the sun in their civilisation. There will now be a new solar revolution.

Helios – Greek God of the Sun

There are ambitious targets for solar power with 8% per annum by 2028 and along with wind and HEP, the aim is to replace all coal. (lignite) powered power stations  which is a particularly dirty source of energy. There are some big projects from all of the big three EPC contractors (there are 1500 EPC contractors and installers in Greece). The Swiss company Meeco , the only large EPC contractor to offer offgrid installations has contracts for 3 mW while recently it completed 4 x 100 kwp installations at Oropo near Athens. It feeds 580,000 kWhrs to the grid.  Juwi are installing 9mW and have signed in Feb 2020 a PPA for 200 mW for Hellenic Petroleum. The Chinese company Jinko installed 13mW in 2019 with more in the pipeline including 3mW at old mining sites.

Greek Insolation Map

Despite these large projects most solar in Greece is small scale and installed by small companies mostly roof mounted. Despite the progress, bureaucracy in Greece is stifling the growth of solar. To bid for contracts bidders must have a grid licence which are difficult to obtain, or statutory access to the grid. Capital is difficult to obtain from Greek Banks and taxes are specifically applied to solar component parts. Hopefully the new right wing government will liberalise the regime. The result of these obstacles was only 41 mW installed in 2018. 

Tilos near Rhodos is the first island in the Aegean to depend entirely on solar. Power came through an undersea cable from Kos 42 kms away but damage to the cable caused frequent outages and the use of local and inefficient diesel generators damaged appliances and spoiled food in hotels and restaurants. It also damages the tourist trade which is the main economic activity with 13,000 visitors per year. The winter population is 500 rising to 3,000 in the summer. The new power system is a hybrid with 800 kW wind generator and a solar park. So far it cover 70% of their energy needs but soon it will be expanded to cover 100%. Interestingly the Greek power company spends $800 million year  just shipping fossil fuel around the Aegean to supply generators on the inhabited islands.

Tilos Solar Farm

This certainly offers an opportunity for offgrid between small  grid connected roof mounted systems and large solar parks. Customers could include resort hotels, restaurant complexes and bars, self service accommodation, factories, warehouses and national monuments. Supplying  solar to the Parthenon would certainly mean a birth of a new civilisation.

Currently electricity is expensive euro cents 18.6 for households and 11.8 for business and even more on remote islands. Island electricity can be converted to solar 100% even larger islands including Kefalonia, Corfu and Lesbos. Lesbos has large numbers of refugees from the war in Syria and needs power. Solar power to the islands and expatriate owners of homes and hotels represents a real market opportunity.

Biblio

Modern Intelligence – Greek solar energy market – forecasts 2020-2025

Solar for Europe Financial Times

PV Magazine Greece

Mecco solar website

Juwi website

Short History of Modern Greece – C.M.Woodhouse

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