POWER-GEN Europe and REWE 2017

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Power Generation From RES in Greece: Development, Market Distortions and New Policy Framework (Room Rheinsaal 5)

Following a short period of rapid increase, the deployment of RES was suspended in Greece since 2013, when the country was fallen into economic recession. Additional cause of this stagnation was the extremely high feed-in-tariff rates that had been given by the state especially for PV projects and resulted in uncontrollable deployment of this technology, which in 2012 exceeded the national target for 2020. This was the main reason for the creation of a large deficit in the special account for the remuneration of all RES production. The control of this deficit became even more difficult in the last years due to the reduction of electricity demand and the decrease of system marginal price. Some correction actions like the reduction of guaranteed tariffs for existing PV units were not adequate to solve this problem, and for this reason more drastic regulations will be activated in the next months in the electricity market, following a new policy framework to support RES development in the country that has recently set into law by the ministry. In this context a first pilot auction for 40 MW PVs has recently been designed by the Regulatory Authority for Energy and will take place in December, for two project categories, below 1 MW and between 1 and 10 MW, with the feed-in premium scheme. The outcome and feedback from this procedure will then be used to organize the regular tenders for all RES technologies that will start in the first months of 2017. The new legislation allows also the net-metering schemes to expand to ground-mounted systems, while the regulatory framework for virtual net-metering schemes is currently under completion. Also, there are some investment plans that combine very large local RES deployment with the interconnection of some remote islands that have great wind potential. The above changes will be presented and discussed, as they take place within an electricity market that is being transformed and liberalized according to the EU target model.