For the First Time Ever, This Country Ran Entirely on Renewables

For the first time in its history, Greece ran entirely on renewable energy sources for five hours, a sign that the European country’s power grid is greener and its electricity system reliable to cover the demand.

“With the interconnections implemented on land and sea, new electrical capacity is created for even greater renewable energy sources penetration that will make our energy mix even greener in the coming years,” states Greece’s independent power transmission operator.

On 7 October, a record high of 3,106MWh in renewables was reached around 8 o’clock and for some 5 hours, the electricity system solely ran on green power. In the first eight months of 2022, Greece’s power mix contained 46% of renewables, an increase of 4% from the same period in 2021. The country plans on having 25GW of installed renewables capacity by 2030 – that number is around 10GW today – notably with the $2.56 billion Greek scheme approved by the European Commission to support 4.2GW of installed renewables capacity. Clean electricity production is to be achieved through solar PV and solar-plus-storage in and outside of Greece.