Both the announcement and the presence of the financing schemes from the EU and Goal III (download PDF to right) confirm the Greek government’s resolve to embark on a course of green development as a way of getting over current financial and fiscal crisis.
According to the Ministry’s announcement, the bulk of these subsidies will be used to promote “green development, biodiversity as well as energy efficiency” with the main goal of utilising all available external funding. The pumping of money into supporting Greece’s green economy plan is indeed important. It signifies a break with past practices of environmental indifference, and could turn into an opportunity for Greece to fully utilise its domestic energy sources toward opening new markets and becoming an important green energy player.
The country has unique potential to develop renewable technologies such as Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Greece, which is currently a net importer of electrical energy, could soon become an exporter of clean renewable energy. For instance Italy, one of Greece’s neighbours, has already expressed its interest in importing renewable energy due its projected inability to achieve its binding targets for 2020 to which it committed.
What’s more, by using this opportunity Greece could develop technological know-how that could later be exported, through Greek investments, to countries of the Balkans and North Africa. Such investments are facilitated by the Mediterranean Solar Plan.
Greece could also utilise a combination of the NER300 funding scheme and subsidies offered under this plan to fund a CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) project. Greece’s decision to move forward with the construction of two new unabated lignite-fired power plant units in Ptolemaida and Florina does not adhere to the Ministry’s declaration for green development. Measures have to be taken to radically curb emissions from these new units and the technology to achieve this is available.
Greece has to use every opportunity to build CCS know-how now so that it does not have to acquire it expensively in the future.
The opportunity for Greece to develop its green credentials and become energy self-sufficient in a carbon-free manner is there. What is needed is a strategic plan and the political will to acknowledge existing potential. The commitment of the Ministry to make use of all available funding on green development is a promising step forward.
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