Green electricity cuts “go hand in hand” with the increasing penetration of RES, the Vice President of IPTO and General Manager of Technology, System Development & Strategy, Ioannis Margaris, said at the 6th Power & Gas Forum.
He explained, however, that at the present stage these are not due to network saturation, a phenomenon that will soon be observed given that the energy transition in Greece is proceeding with the logic of overbooking, a model that has been chosen by the State and the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.
Regarding the issue of compensation, he found it positive that it was resolved with the recent Ministerial Decision, which protects the Administrator, pointing out, however, that it should be determined who will be compensated and in what order so that investors can calculate their expected income.
Margaris stressed that in any case, the main responsibility of IPTO is the security of the system and with this criterion, connection offers are and will be granted to new RES projects. On this basis, he said that as many investors as possible will continue to implement the projects, otherwise they will withdraw. “The rate of issuing offers has decreased – there is no magic solution and there is no technical possibility to connect all the pending projects while ensuring the safe operation of the system,” he stressed.
Margaris also commented that the concept of the project developer has prevailed in Greece, which by definition does not have a long-term strategy regarding the sustainability of the projects.
Next steps
He added that the studies required to reach an agreement with investors on how to connect the projects are extremely time-consuming. As he said, in the next steps of the transition, special attention is needed on the RES investment plans, the agreements and the deadlines that are being discussed so that they are realistic, given that the country currently does not have the capacity – in terms of construction company and supply chain capabilities – to support all these projects within the times that the parties have committed.
Finally, in relation to the connection cost of RES connection projects, he estimated that this will increase.
