Greece

While Greece’s solar PV market starts to gather heat, pv magazine explores why Greece’s non-interconnected island region is the country’s number one spot in need of more solar PV and storage projects.

Greece’s solar PV drama appears open-ended, at least as long as the deficit in the fund that remunerates renewable energy generators remains. Rumors about new retroactive tariff cuts in existing PV installations are spreading throughout the country.

Greece is set to publish a new policy framework for the support of renewable energies in June, with the aim of putting it into law by July. Two pilot auctions for around 50 MW of solar PV will take place as part of the policy.

Greece is set to begin accepting applications for net metering systems to connect to the medium voltage electricity grid. Will this new approach lead to an uptick in new PV installations?

With Greece forming a new government, will the country at last engage with the serious reforms it needs to keep it afloat? And will the energy sector embrace groundbreaking technological change?

After weeks of tremendous uncertainty, a Euro Summit on Sunday led to an agreement that allows Greece and its Eurozone creditors to start negotiations for a new loan. What does the deal mean for Greece’s energy system, and how will renewable energies be affected?

Greece’s electricity market operator LAGIE published this week the country’s latest renewable energy statistics concerning the first four months of 2015. According to LAGIE’s report, Greece installed 7 MW of new photovoltaics from January to April. Specifically, all new installations were added in January and February, while in March and April there was no installation activity at all.

Despite technically reaching grid parity, Greece installed a mere 13 MW of new solar PV in 2014, according to official statistics released last week.

The Greek government has introduced legislation to facilitate net metering for solar PV arrays. To reward the PV sector for the delay in the policy, Greece has designed a generous net-metering scheme allowing installations up to 500 KW. Is the new law able to kick-start the idle Greek PV sector?

Solar boat MS Turanor PlanetSolar has become a research vessel for archaeological expeditions in Greece. The catamaran completed a round-the-world trip in 2012 powered only by sun.