Greece's New Installed PV Capacity in 2023 Reached 1.59 GW

Greece PV installed capacity statistics are confused, different agencies issued different reports. Dapeep said it will add 1,183 MW of PV capacity in 2023, while Helapco said 1,591MW. The net metering market and energy community projects contributed significantly to the new installations. Renewable energy sources meet 57% of Greece's electricity demand, and solar penetration reaches 18.4%.

There is no specialized agency in the Greek public administration that regularly publishes energy statistics for all technical and support programs, so different agencies often issue reports covering different market segments, causing confusion in the statistics of installed electricity capacity in the country.

Dapeep, a Greek renewable energy operator, is one example. According to Dapeep, Greece will add 1,183 MW of PV capacity in 2023, mainly ground-mounted systems. But its report does not include capacity installed through the Net Metering Program and the Energy Community Program.

The Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Companies (Helapco) released a separate report in February, saying that Greece will add 1,574.7 MW of PV capacity in 2023.

This week, Helapco told PV magazine that the records have been updated to include the 16 MW net metering PV system installed at Athens International Airport last year. The 16 MW park is the largest net metering self-use PV project in the country.

Helapco told PV magazine that Greece added 1,591 MW of solar capacity last year, bringing the country's total capacity to 7,105 MW. This is the most solar power capacity added in Greece in a single year. In 2022, Greece deployed 1.36 GW of solar capacity.

The new capacity includes systems supported by premium tariffs through competitive bidding, small systems up to 500 kW per unit compensated by long-term sustainable tariffs, net metering systems, energy community projects, and PV projects directly participating in the electricity market without subsidy support.

Helapco told PV magazine that Greece has yet to install any solar projects operating through commercial power purchase agreements (PPAs). According to the Dapeep report, 183.7 MW of PV capacity will be directly involved in the electricity market by the end of 2023. Helapco policy officer Stelios Psomas said this was not the capacity operated under the PPA, claiming that Dapeep did not publish a detailed list of projects.

Helapco noted the importance of the net metering market. According to its report, Greece added 257.1 MW of net metering systems last year, marking the biggest surge in net metering installed capacity since the program was launched a decade ago. big

Most of the new systems are arrays larger than 1 MW. At the end of last year, Greece operated 472.9 MW of net metered PV capacity.

A portion of the net metering market is related to Greece's €200 million ($215.3 million) subsidy program for small solar plus storage systems in the residential and agricultural sectors, launched in March 2023. Last year, this segment of net metering added 1,795 such systems, or 11.89 MW(12.66 MWh) of capacity.

Psomas said the €200 million scheme suffered from problems in the first few months of its launch, such as a lack of flexibility on the part of the scheme's administrators, resulting in many projects needing to resubmit applications. Delays in subsidy payments have discouraged some consumers from adopting the plan. But various policy changes have addressed these problems, and half of the planned budget has already been delivered.

"Experience has shown that it takes a year or two for new programs to find their rhythm," Psomas said. We (Helapco) expect to install around 60 MW of new PV capacity in the coming months, equivalent to around 9,000 new solar add-on systems."

A separate report by Athens-based policy group The Green Tank says that by the end of 2023, energy communities will have 14 MW of PV capacity and operate through net metering. Based on the number of applications filed in 2023, this segment is also expected to grow significantly in 2024.

In December 2023, more than 1 GW of PV projects were also installed in energy communities outside of the net metering scheme, the report said, mostly by corporate-run energy communities that can build projects based on stable feed-in tariffs.

According to Helapco, solar panels in Greece will meet 18.4% of the country's electricity needs by 2023. According to Helapco, this is the highest penetration of solar energy in the national electricity mix in Europe to date.

The Greek transmission system operator also said that Greece's renewable energy system, including large hydropower plants, met 57 percent of the country's electricity demand last year, up from 50.12 percent the previous year.