Greece 2050 Green Energy Roadmap Key to Its Economic Recovery, Country Says

April 4th, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

Greece is confident that its considerable green energy goals and roadmap will lead it out of its economic troubles. Those plans, which include a €20-billion solar power initiative, are also supposed to lead it to 100% green electricity by 2050.

Greece Wants to Become Major Solar Energy Player

Lucas Papademos, who was speaking at a renewable energy and infrastructure development summit in Athens yesterday, said that he wants the country to become the EU’s largest exporter of green energy. Its Project Helios initiative is a big part of that, and is supposed to bring Greek solar energy from 206 MW of capacity in 2010 to 2.2 GW (2,200 MW) of capacity by 2020 to 10 GW (10,000) MW of capacity by 2050.

Through this plan, Greece hopes to bring in €20 billion of investment and become a net solar power exporter.

“No other OECD country has reduced its deficit by so much so quickly. But fiscal harmonization isn’t enough for development. The energy sector gives Greece an opportunity to become a hub for the European Union and third countries,” Papademos said.

“The Helios project represents viable development and it will enable Greece to become the largest exporter in the EU of clean energy.”

Greece Renewable Energy Plan

In addition to Papademos’ speech on these matters, Greece’s Energy and Climate Change Minister, George Papakonstantinou, launched a 2050 energy roadmap draft yesterday which should help get Greece to 80% emissions cuts by 2050 (an EU target).

The plan shows that under a ‘moderate’ scenario Greece would cut emissions 40% by 2050 (on 2005 levels), but that more progressive policies would lead to a 60-70% cut, with 85-100% of electricity coming from renewable energy sources by that point. Renewable penetration as a whole would reach 60-70% as use of biofuels would increase 31-34% (a bit less than use of renewable energy sources for electricity).

Image: Athens Academy by Egui_ published under a CC license Some rights reserved

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Tags: greece, greece clean energy, greece debt, greece economy, greece energy roadmap, greece renewable energy, greece solar, greece solar energy, Papademos

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.