The year 2023 saw Greece's energy market breaking new records for the penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) and reduced energy consumption, according to information revealed to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) and published on Saturday, in spite of a year marked by economic growth and a decline of prices relative to the peak of the energy crisis.
The wind power connected to the grid in the first half of 2023 approached 5GW. Specifically, 4,935.4 MW was the total wind power in Greece at the end of June. This results from the six-monthly Wind Energy Statistics in Greece announced by the Hellenic Wind Energy Association HWEA.
Based on the Statistics, during the first 6 months of 2023, 77 new wind turbines with a total output power of 252.5 MW were connected to the grid, corresponding to investments totaling more than 260 million euros. This is an increase of 5.4% compared to the end of 2022.
More new wind turbines were connected to the grid in the first half of 2023 than in all of 2022. The acceleration in growth is due to the gradual completion of major wind investments thanks to the efforts of business, academia and wind energy professionals in Greece.
At the end of H1 2023, over 600 MW of new wind farms were under construction or contracted, the vast majority of which are expected to be connected to the grid within the next 12 months.
Another 450 MW are in the certification phase or are about to start construction. To these must be added another 400MW that have been selected in tenders, have submitted good performance guarantees but do not belong to any of the above categories. As a result the total wind capacity will approach 6.5 GW within the next three years.
Of course, if years of bureaucratic and other problems are overcome, this power can be even greater, according to ELETAEN.
At the level of Regions, Central Greece remains at the top of wind installations since it hosts 2,110 MW (43%), followed by Peloponnese with 639 MW (13%) and Eastern Macedonia - Thrace where there are 534 MW (11%).
As far as business groups are concerned, the Top-5 are:
It is noted that all the figures mentioned above refer to wind power attributed to the grid.
The picture for wind turbine manufacturers is as follows:
Vestas has supplied 46.6% of the total attributed wind power in Greece.
They are followed by Enercon with 25.5%, Siemens Gamesa with 16.7%, Nordex with 6.4% and GE Renewable Energy with 3.4%.
Smaller shares are held by EWT, Goldwind and Leitwind.
During the period 2018-2021, wind farms with a total capacity of 1,426MW have been selected through RAE's tenders. (These do not include the 166MW selected within 2022).
But mainly due to delays caused by bureaucratic obstacles, only 460.4 MW, i.e. 32%, had managed to operate at the end of the A' half of 2023.
These delays are not without consequences. The compensation price of wind farms selected in tenders and not yet implemented is much lower than the cost of production from natural gas or lignite. These wind projects, with a total capacity of 1 GW, if completed on time, would have provided more cheap energy and permanent relief to Greek consumers and the national economy.
