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Always__curious__ OP t1_irwd1oq wrote

Solar, wind and hydro represented 46 per cent of the nation’s power mix in the eight months to August this year. Could we see other countries scaling up in the future and following their lead, especially in light of the nergy/cost of living crisis?

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Faidonas t1_irwl637 wrote

I mean Greece has the advantage of basically infinite hydro and solar, its most populated cities being near it. It's also a generally small country. Nevertheless still fantastic and hopefully will pave the way for other countries to follow (maybe sell some to help their economy??)

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Truditoru t1_irxhvdz wrote

hydro is very tough to call “infinite” and poses serious biodiversity concerns. If we were to move to clean and efficient energy;solar, wind and nuclear plants are the way to go

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HikeyBoi t1_irxrs02 wrote

Also infinite is just silly to say in this situation.

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Kevin_Jim t1_irzujh0 wrote

Greece can made a lot of dams at a relative low cost because of its terrain. Unfortunately, we don’t have that many. The islands could use them more than any other place for water storage and energy storage.

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ArgyleTheDruid t1_irx8y2b wrote

Didn’t i just read they are building a power line to Egypt for solar? I wonder if they are planning on selling energy or getting more. Either way I’m glad they are taking sustainable energy seriously and wish more countries did the same

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farrowsharrows t1_iry622q wrote

I imagine desert regions will supply Europe with clean solar power in the future so these lines will be like gas lines now.

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Tubixs t1_iryf0zg wrote

Huge for the Greek economy in the future. Also the Egyptian. Love to see it

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Christosconst t1_iryyw7y wrote

Greece-Cyprus-Israel, 2GW, each country can buy or sell to it

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beatthestupidout t1_irzw9le wrote

Libya needs to get on this as well to rebuild their economy. Libya > Malta > Italy would be huge, the lines possibly running right up into Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Morocco could capitalise on the idea as well, exporting to Spain and France.

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Spiff76 t1_irwk9bb wrote

Yas! So it can be done, glad one country has finally shown the way… despite having masive swaths of desert for solar and prairie for wind and miles of coastline for wave generators it will still take ‘Murica 40 yrs to accomplish this.

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FigoStep t1_irwskl2 wrote

Portugal did this back in 2018 after achieving 99.2% in 2014. Still a great achievement though for any country.

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arch_rival t1_irx4f4k wrote

I once thought exactly like you; I encourage you and others to read How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here And Where We’re Going By Vaclav Smil. In short, the modern world is massively oil dependent and the best green intentions don’t scale anytime quickly. To be clear, he’s not anti green solutions, there are just so many issues of scale that aren’t talked about in the normal discourse. He lays it out plainly and better than I ever could.

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InterestsVaryGreatly t1_irzow9q wrote

Except we have evidence of countries who have already gone green. And even if you argue that solar and wind have downtimes, even ignoring energy storing options, a grid that is mostly renewable with pockets of less green resources to compensate is a massive improvement over what we have.

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arch_rival t1_irzuh90 wrote

My point was largely of scale (and hidden dependence on oil). I really can’t recommend the book enough…

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Dtoodlez t1_itgflj9 wrote

In Murica it will probably be an individual state thing, never wide adoption.

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Goldenslicer t1_irxcinj wrote

Why are you lying to me, article?

>Greece: How much of the country’s energy comes from fossil fuels?

> 2021: 79.84%

I stand corrected. The country's electricity consumption accounts for 19.0% of total energy consumption. So it is entirely plausible that the electric grid is 100% renewable yet 80% of the country's energy comes from fossil fuels.

Which is kind of a sobering thought really. That even if we sourced all our electricity from renewables, we are far from done...

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tnorbosu t1_irxgl2y wrote

Energy is not electricity. A country's total energy counts the gas for its cars and planes, its fuel for heating, its coal for steelmaking. All this is saying is that their power grid was 100% renewable

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Goldenslicer t1_irxkfsd wrote

This would make sense if at most 20% of the country's energy consumption is in the form of electricity.

Is it? I actually don't know.

Edit: crap. It is. Using my own source. In 2021, the country consumed 293 TWh of energy, of which, 55.78 TWh was electricity which comes out to 19.0% of total energy being in the form of electricity.

I stand corrected.

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Still_Study_6059 t1_is01frq wrote

Yeah, it's still a leap to go to completely renewable energy. I've fallen into that trap as well in the past. Oh, 100% renewable electricity is near, that's problem solved then. But then someone pointed out that energy =/= electricity.

Some upsides though, even a legacy carmaker like Mercedes thinks in 2025 we'll have price parity between EV and ICE-cars. In Europe there's a massive push to heating our homes with heat-pumps, I think I can get 30% or something like that back from my government on the purchase of one. New houses here aren't even connected to the gas-grid anymore. We've got incentives for all sorts of insulation too.

My countries government aims for a sort of double or triple punch where you get your house insulated to the point where you can heat it with a heat-pump and on top of that you feed your heat-pump with solar energy if possible.

I think at the moment where I live industry is the biggest challenge with regards to them going green.

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webs2slow4me t1_is0ainh wrote

Yea the company that I work for is looking into it and it is nearly impossible to make our plants run on 100% renewables unless we get renewables from the power grid and for the utility company to deliver that it will take some truly massive projects.

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Christosconst t1_iryzf6w wrote

Transportation which is the biggest energy cost is going 100% electric after 2030 based on EU targets

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sunsparkda t1_irzdrk4 wrote

>Which is kind of a sobering thought really. That even if we sourced all our electricity from renewables, we are far from done...

Given that plans for carbon neutrality stretch out decades, not years, it'd be kind of shocking if we weren't still a good long ways from being done.

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ShowMeYourPapers t1_irxccho wrote

Give some credit to Poseidon, Apollo, and Aeolus or they'll be a little peeved.

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EggplantFearless5969 t1_irx82wp wrote

They maybe small but if a smaller country can do it then it can be a blueprint for bigger cities and maybe states?

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Supaslags t1_iry2l64 wrote

For five hours.

I’m all onboard with the renewable revolution, but there is a lot of progress to be made. Peak demand during ideal renewable conditions is one thing. Overnight is another.

How are they producing VArs? How are they riding through disturbances while taking renewable energy? How is system stability when exposed to a hard ground fault in the transmission system without system inertia from synchronous generation? How are they adjusting VAr demand over the load curve?

Impressive that they generated enough capacity during the easiest time frame to achieve this. Impress me with the bigger issues.

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PhilipMcNally t1_iry94xc wrote

One of their biggest problems are the Greek islands that aren't connected to the mainland, resulting in them generating power from oil and diesel. They have projects in place to create super grids to connect them all up to the mainland by 2030. Some of these projects have an return on investment in 2.5 years

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ImaginedOrder t1_is0lvny wrote

Have the Greeks tried capturing all the hot air the old men create when they complain at the tavernas? Might be an addition for renewables. Just a thought.

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FuturologyBot t1_irwito3 wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Always__curious__:

Solar, wind and hydro represented 46 per cent of the nation’s power mix in the eight months to August this year. Could we see other countries scaling up in the future and following their lead, especially in light of the nergy/cost of living crisis?

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/y1bn9b/major_milestone_for_greek_energy_as_renewables/irwd1oq/

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AztecWheels t1_irx9c7q wrote

But wut are they gunna do when they run outta wind?!

​

Seriously this is a great milestone for them. Let's hope the rest of the world follows suit while they can. I'm tired of hearing about hurricanes and floods followed by record droughts and wildfires.

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[deleted] t1_irzdv7d wrote

I don’t want to imagine turning that grid back on in Fallout.

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JimMadness t1_isd40wf wrote

Greek here and let me ruin this good image for you. They burnt huge forests and fields to place their fucking wind turbines on mountains they wouldn't otherwise be allowed by nature protecting laws to do so. We still buy the most expensive electricity in Europe. The electricity providers are run by corrupt families who collect municipality fees through our bills and never deposit that money to the government(been like that for almost 5 years). They also started making made up fees after this whole 'energy crisis' thing (before Ukraine war). The government is run by pedophiles who cover their tracks using the police and the prime ministers brother in law is transferring illegaly cng gas from russia while he's also the largest drug dealer in Greece having one of his ships busted with 2 tons of heroin. None of the 11 witnesses survived and every judge who was involved with the case has either left the country or is not involved anymore. Greece is a fucked up place with the best frontmen, Mitsotakis is the worst PM to have passed Greece since the CIA backed dictatorship in 1967-74.

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YetAnotherWTFMoment t1_irzb33z wrote

Yeah. If only they could get the people using the power to actually pay for it.

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After-District8811 t1_iry5ro5 wrote

I guess the pro of having barely any economic growth for generations is that it’s easy to meet your energy needs.

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Shot-Job-8841 t1_irztvf9 wrote

Has much more to do with the amount of sun and water they have. The geography itself is a key part of why they can go green faster than some other countries.

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