Greece’s energy transition has made great progress over the last five years. Despite the significant increase in renewable energy sources (RES) that we expect in the coming years, as a result of the storage units, the challenges in the energy market remain significant, while we should not overlook the fact that the benefits to end consumers from the green transition will not be seen in the immediate future, stressed Thodoris Tzouros, Senior General Manager, Chief Corporate & Investment Banking of Piraeus at the 4th Delphi Economic Forum Brussels.
Participating in a discussion on Powering Europe Through Cooperation: Energy Security, Circular Future & the East Mediterranean, Tzouros referred to Greece’s potential to emerge as a regional natural gas hub, as well as the significant progress that has been made in the country’s energy independence through the development of RES.
The Head of Corporate & Investment Banking of Piraeus highlighted the challenges for completing the green transition and made proposals for the strategy to accelerate its progress.
As Tzouros emphasized, the country has achieved an increase in installed RES capacity by 50% in three years, from 10.1 GW in 2022 to 15 GW in 2025, with their share in electricity generation having increased from 35% to 55%, significantly reducing dependence on lignite and, to a lesser extent, on natural gas units (CCGT).
By 2030, the capacity of RES in operation is estimated to reach 23 GW, with a share of approximately 76% in electricity generation, which will be made possible with the contribution of storage units (batteries) which are estimated at 5GW by then.
“It is worth noting that Greece is set to play an important role as a regional gas hub in the era when there will be no Russian gas in the European Union, as, according to the recent European Union directive, all Russian gas imports must be replaced by 2028. In the first nine months of 2025, LNG exports from Greece more than doubled, reaching 5 TWh from 0.6 TWh last year, while the country has invested in upgrading natural gas infrastructure in Northern Greece (doubling the capacity of the section serving TAP), and the US sees Greek infrastructure as a critical corridor for the transport of American LNG,” he noted.
“The fact that a few weeks ago there was interest in the tender for the reservation of capacity for the transport of natural gas from Revithoussa to Ukraine, via Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, is no coincidence. The vertical axis of natural gas is now a reality,” he added.
Despite the significant penetration of RES in the Greek market, this has not led to a reduction in prices. Tzouros cited a number of reasons:
· the marginal price is still determined by CCGT, which also provides balancing services.
· upgrading the networks to accommodate more RES requires high investments (CAPEX), which are passed on to the final consumers.
· there are still no batteries to utilize the excess production of RES.
· there are not enough electrical interconnections with other countries – and those that do exist are not always operational, such as the line with Italy which has been closed since August.
He stressed that the role of Greek banks remains important in the green transition as they have already granted over 15 billion euros in loans for the development of new wind and mainly photovoltaic parks in the last decade, and even in a period when international funds were very limited. Banks have managed to adapt to the structural changes in the market, from feed-in tariff models, to feed-in premiums and corporate PPAs, while today they are even considering financing with merchant risk.
It is important that Greek banks have also participated in financing RES projects in Romania, Italy, Bulgaria and other European countries, using their know-how to support their clients abroad.
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