By Costis Stambolis
Spotted from their circular wall thick base, often in rubbles, Greece is full of the remains of old type windmills. At one point not in the so distant past more than 10.000 such windmills were in use all over the country, both on the islands but also in the mainland. Most of these cloth sail windmills had a fixed axis and were used for wheat grinding serving the needs of the local community. The development and utilisation of these windmills, very few of which remain still in tact (mostly to by seen in places like Myconos, Paros, Folegandros, Lasithi in Crete, Rhodes and else where) is well documented and their locations still visible in most parts of Greece. The existence of so many of these traditional windmills in Greece, many of which were still in operation in the immediate post war years, shows that Greece for few hundred years (early seventeen to mid twenty century) covered a substantial part of its energy needs from wind power. It also shows that Greece has hundreds of well identified locations which enjoy relatively strong and steady wind currents, normally of a north to north easterly direction. This is a most useful observation since wind power has recently started to be utilised again, for electric power generation.
Modern day use of wind power started back in the early 80’s when Greece’s monopoly electricity utility the Public Power Corporation (PPC), set up one of Europe’s first wind farms on the windy island of Kythnos, consisting of five small capacity windmills totalling 100 KW in installed wind capacity. Since then considerable progress has been achieved with several wind farms now in operation and with total installed wind capacity totalling 410 MW. Most of the wind capacity is owned and operated by private companies while PPC controls wind installations of 37 MW capacity.
Compared with other European countries, in terms of installed wind capacity, Greece ranks really low. Germany tops the list with 14.600 MWs, followed by Spain, 6.200 MW and Denmark, 3.100 MW(See table I). Although Greece has all the necessary preconditions which would have enabled the develompent of a much larger wind industry a number of factors prevented the wind market from taking off. Last year Greece only managed to add 78 MW of new wind capacity compared to huge increases reported in other countries e.g. 2.645 MW in Germany, 1.377 MW in Spain, 243 MW in Denmark etc. Of course Europe right now, in regional terms, is the fastest growing market worldwide with annual installed capacity growth running at 23%. In that sense Greece is part of a really dynamic moving market which inevitably affects developments up to a certain degree here, note sources at ELETAEN, Greece’s scientific wind association.
Back in 1994 the then socialist government of Andreas Papandreou introduced a truly revolutionary law, by Greek standards, law 2244/94 which enabled private enterpreneurs to invest in private wind farms and obliged PPC to purchase wind produced electricity at fixed, but annually adjusted tarifs. In addition the government secured European Union funding thus enabling it to offer cash aid did to several wind projects. This combination of grants and wind produced electricity sales provided strong incentives which allowed the market to develop between 1995 and 2001. Since early 2002 though the market appears to have stalled with only a handful of projects still under development.
There are two important reasons as to why the wind market in Greece is in a deep coma over the last three years, notes Mr. John Tsipouridis, ELETAEN’s president. The first reason has to do with the country’s byzantine beaurocracy which inevitably has affected the licensing procedure for wind projects. Until very recently, notes Tsiporides, an investor had to obtain forty one (41) approvals and authorisations from thirty nine (39) different local and central government organisations, in most cases having to submit first detailed applications. Although the licensing procedure introduced by law 2244/94 was initially simple, gradually it became complex as more and more parties realised that there is some financial benefit to be gained, and managed to get included in the procedure. At the end the whole process of applying for a wind operation license became so cumbersome that it acted us a disincentive to would be investors. There are cases where it took a company two full years to obtain all the required approvals, by which time its original plan had to be revised on both technical and financial terms and the whole project budget restated. This drove away from Greece several foreign investorss. Another major reason as to why wind project development has been left seriously behind in Greece, notes Tsipourides, is PPC’s failure to upgrade and modernize key grid lines and connections in areas of proved wind potential where companies have already obtained licences to develop wind farms. Such areas include Lakonia, in south Peloponissos, South Evia and Thrace in northern Greece. Unless PPC moves fast to augment its grid system there is no way that wind generated electricity will find its way to the grid and ultimately to the consumer.
Based on 2003 fingures wind produced electricity contributed to something less than 1% of the country’s energy needs and just 1,6% of national electricity production. From 375MW of installed wind capacity a total of 850GWhs electricity was produced, compared to a total of 52,214 GWhs produced by PPC for the whole of the country. Nevertheless, it is important to note, says Mr. Costas Filippides, managing director of ENTEKA, and one of Greece’s top wind experts, that wind energy last year covered the electricity needs of 325,000 households all over Greece and prevented 850,000 of CO2 emissions.
Although all political parties pay lip service to renewable energy sources and agree that wind energy is good for environmental protection and helps save Greece money from energy imports, notably oil and gas, they are not prepared to take decisice action and facilitate wind’s penetration in the country’s energy system. The deputy minister, in charge of energy, Mr. George Salagoudis, says that all this is going to change and his government will give wind energy and other RES the attention they deserve. Already, says Salagoudis, his ministry managed to reduce the number of licensing steps and over the last few weeks they have literally kicked through the system at least six major wind farm projects which means that by the end of next year Greece will have added at least 300MW of new wind capacity (See Table II). If this happens Greece will have regained some of its lost momentum in developing wind energy, although most wind investors remain sceptical as to the goverments’s ability to jumpstart the country’s monolithic public service system.