Sunny Greece is struggling with solar energy overload
In a field in Central Greece that once grew Klaver and Maïs, maintenance employee Nikos Zigomitros skilfully drives a tractor between rows of solar panels, which cuts weeds under a burning sun.
“Letting them grow too high, hinders the panel performance,” explains the 52-year-old, wipes sweat from his forehead.
Once a center of agricultural production, the area around Kastron Viotias, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) northwest of Athens, has seen solar park path stream in the last 15 years, part of a large, busy energy tension in the country.
Greece has currently installed 16 gigawatts of renewable energy, with solar energy that represents nearly 10 gigawatts, including 2.5 gigawatts that came online last year.
The rapid growth of solar energy is comparable to other countries in Europe, where the coal has overtaken for electricity production, according to climate think tank Ember.
It estimates that renewable energy sources have risen to be good for almost half of the EU electricity production.
Greece did even better: 55 percent of the annual consumption was covered last year by renewable energy sources, in which the solar approval of approximately 23 percent, according to Spef, unites local solar energy producers.
In 2023, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis predicted that Greece would “quickly generate 80 percent of his electricity needs through renewable energy sources.”
But getting there is complicated.
Spef -chairman Stelios Loumakis said that the sun sector has hit a wall because of a combination of factors, including the small size of Greece, limited infrastructure and delays in building energy storage capacity.
– saturated –
The Greek state approved too many photovoltaic projects over the past five years and the market is saturated, which leads to a “serious production surplus” on sunny days, said the 56-year-old chemical engineer and energy consultant.
The national grid operator of Greece in May repeatedly ordered thousands of medium-sized operators to close during the sunny hours of the day to prevent the network from overloading and to activate a blackout.
“The trick is to balance supply and demand. If you are not doing well, you will get a blackout,” says Nikos Mantzaris, a senior policy analyst and partner at the independent civilian organization Green Tank.
In April, a huge blackout of unknown origin paralyzed the Iberian peninsula. The Spanish government said that two major power fluctuations were registered in half an hour before the grid collapsed, but the government insisted that renewable energy sources were not the fault.
“It can be something as everyday as a defective cable,” said Mantzaris.
– batteries ‘crucial’ – –
To manage the surplus, Greece is built up the storage capacity of the battery. But overtaking his solar electricity production will take years.
“The next three years will be crucial,” says Stelios Psomas, a policy advisor at Helapco, a trade association for Greek companies that produce and install solar panels.
In the meantime, operators of the solar panel will have to ensure that production does not surpass the capacity, reducing their potential income.
“Managing high shares of renewable energy sources – in particular solar energy – requires significant flexibility and storage solutions,” said Francesca Androlli, a senior researcher at ECCO, a think tank for climate change in Italy, which has a similar problem.
“Battery capacity has become a structural necessity for the electricity system, by absorbing excess renewable energy and releasing it when demand rises,” she said AFP.
– Agricultural income –
Mimis Tsakanikas, a 51-year-old farmer in Kastron, easily admits that Solar has been good for his family.
The photovoltaic farm they built in 2012 for an amount of 210,000 euros knew at least 55,000 euros a year, much more than he could earn by growing vegetables and watermelons.
“This park supports my house,” he said.
But the father of two also notes that the environmental balance has tipped in his area, whereby the spread of solar installations now causes concerns over the local microclimate.
Tsakanikas says that the area has already experienced temperature rises of a maximum of 4.0 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit), which he blames for the abundance of heating sorry solar parks in the area.
“The microclimate has certainly changed, we have not seen Frost for two years,” he said AFP.
“(At this pace) In five years we will cultivate bananas here, like in Crete,” he said.
