Greece plans to develop large-scale photovoltaic hydrogen production project
A British renewable energy producer named HiveEnergy recently announced ambitions to invest in a sizable photovoltaic hydrogen generation project in Greece. The project consists of three components: a photovoltaic power station, an energy storage power station, and an electrolytic cell, with a combined installed capacity of around 200,000 kilowatts for the photovoltaic power station, about 100,000 kilowatts for the energy storage power station using lithium batteries, and about 50,000 kilowatts for the electrolytic cell. It can produce 16 tons of hydrogen per day once it is finished. The Inter-Ministerial Strategic Investment Committee of Greece will support the project, which has a total investment of 226.4 million euros and will be the country's first national strategic investment in photovoltaic hydrogen production.
Green and clean energy, such solar and hydrogen energy, are seen as being essential to reducing emissions and achieving carbon reduction as Europe's energy transformation accelerates. The effort to produce hydrogen using photovoltaic energy was praised by Greek government personnel: "This project will support the growth of Greece's green economy, quicken the updating and iteration of new renewable energy innovation technologies, aid Greece in energy conservation and decarbonization, and lessen the country's environmental impact. Reduce Greece's reliance on oil and gas while also assisting us in navigating the current energy crisis. For this reason, we designated the initiative as a national strategic investment."
The Inter-Ministerial Strategic Investment Committee of Greece noted that photovoltaic hydrogen generation projects had never previously been included as national strategic investments. Typically, no novel photovoltaic power generation projects are approved by the Greek Inter-Ministerial Strategic Investment Committee. This project demonstrates to the capital market the growth potential of renewable energy in Greece, and it will draw investors' attention to comparable initiatives and open up financing avenues for associated projects. With the strong backing of the Greek government, administrative processes like project approval, and licensing will also move quickly, hastening the arrival of green cleaning initiatives in Greece.
As a country that openly opposes the EU's ban on the import of Russian crude oil and petroleum products, Greece is accelerating the development of renewable energy industry and increasing its support for photovoltaic industry. In recent years, the annual installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation in Greece has been one million kilowatts approximately. A few days ago, the State Grid Corporation of Greece publicly stated that Greece completed 100% renewable energy supply for the first time. "On October 7th, Greece used 100% renewable energy electricity in five hours, and the generated electricity set a new record of 316,000 kWh. This is the first time in the history of the Greek power system. " A spokesman for the State Grid Corporation of Greece said, "With the increasing installed scale of renewable energy and the continuous penetration of green electricity, our energy structure will undergo fundamental changes in the next few years."
However, compared with Greece's leading sunshine resources in European countries, the development of photovoltaic power generation projects in this country is still limited. According to the data of TheGreenTank, from January to August this year, the share of renewable energy electricity in Greece was 46%, which was higher than 42% in 2021, but not more than half of the electricity structure. According to the data compiled by TASS news agency, Greece's dependence on Russian natural gas is about 96.4%, which still maintains a high level.
In April this year, Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis said at the unveiling ceremony of a photovoltaic power generation project that Greece had to postpone the phase-out of coal-fired power from 2025 to 2028 because of the slow grid-connected speed of renewable energy power generation projects and the fluctuation of carbon price. Even though the closing time of coal-fired power plants has been delayed, the market is still worried that new photovoltaic projects will be difficult to cover the electricity demand of Greece.
PV-TECH, the media industry, believes that the Greek PV market is "about to take off" in the context of the EU's upward adjustment of renewable energy development targets and the promulgation of clean energy policies. In May, the EU REPowerEU energy plan was officially approved. In order to reduce external energy dependence and achieve energy independence by 2027, the transformation of green energy was rapidly promoted. The target of renewable energy consumption in 2030 will be raised from 40% to 45%, and the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation will reach 320 million kilowatts by 2025 and 600 million kilowatts by 2030.
At the same time, the EU also approved a renewable energy project plan with a total investment of 2.27 billion euros to support the development of renewable energy power in Greece, which is expected to increase the installed capacity of 4.2 million kilowatts of renewable energy in Greece. In addition, the European Union approved the IPCEI-Hy2Use project in September, which will provide 5.2 billion euros to 13 member countries for renewable energy hydrogen production projects to support research and innovation in the hydrogen value chain, industrial application and related infrastructure construction. Greece is among them, which will further promote the decarbonization process in Greece.
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