The priority of the new European Commission must be the development of energy interconnections, the president and CEO of PPC George Stassis, said speaking on the Redefining Energy podcast of the European electricity industry organization Eurelectric.
Stassis emphasized that Europe managed to survive after the Ukraine war by taking advantage of the existing network of energy interconnections, which are critical for ensuring energy flows. He also underlined that there is also significant interest in interconnections with other continents, mentioning for example the planned interconnection of Greece with Egypt, which can lay the foundations for the construction of RES units in that country as well.
Stassis described the strategy implemented for the rescue and strengthening of PPC, which is based on three pillars, decarbonization, digitization and a customer-centric approach. The reduction in the cost of renewable sources ensured, as he said, the required revenue to improve the balance sheet and allowed the investment in Romania which ensures significant commercial synergies and diversification of PPC’s portfolio.
“Have a European perspective on the market”
“Greece imported energy from countries on its northern borders. So why not have a presence in these countries? We must have a European perspective on the market. We have secured the investment in Romania at a very good valuation and are planning new investments. For example, we are building 4 gigawatts of RES in Greece, 1.5 gigawatts in Romania and 500 MW to 1 GW in Bulgaria and the other countries in the region.”
Stassis finally referred to PPC’s investments in telecommunications, both with the optical fiber network being developed within Greece and with the international interconnection of Greece with Saudi Arabia and later to the Far East.
He also referred to the new activity related to the construction of data centers which require elements that are already in the former lignite mines of PPC, namely land, interconnections, energy from renewable sources and water cooling previously used for the lignite plants.
