“It is the time of international interconnections and storage,” the vice president and general manager of Technology, System Development and Strategy of the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO), Ioannis Margaris, said during his presentation at the 27th annual conference of the Economist.
As he said, in the last four years Greece has managed to create an unprecedented dynamic in RES, with the installed capacity currently reaching 12 GW and an additional 15 GW of units with guaranteed access to the grid. Given that green power generation in the country will exceed domestic needs, it is necessary to either export or store the excess energy.
Referring to the international interconnections, he said that even if we had an infinite network, given that electricity generation from RES will exceed domestic demand, the strategic priority has been the new electricity transmission corridors, to the North and the South.
On this basis, he presented the major transcontinental interconnection projects currently maturing with Egypt, the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, pointing out that, due to its geographical location, Greece is a unique entry point for green energy from these regions to Europe.
He also underlined that the country has real prospects to develop into a strong exporter of green energy, as it has rich onshore and offshore renewable potential, as well as the political and regulatory framework to achieve this.
New export-oriented interconnections will contribute to this strategic goal, as he said, such as the interconnection with Italy and the new Greece-Germany electrical corridor, Green Aegean Interconnector, which IPTO recently submitted to the Ten-Year Development Program of ENTSO-E.
