The European Union recently approved a plan by the Greek government to allocate 341 million euros for 900MW of energy storage to be developed under the rules of its state aid policy.
The European Commission has approved measures by the Greek government to finance the construction and operation of grid-connected energy storage systems totaling 900MW.
The projects will be screened through a competitive bidding process, with contracts awarded by the end of 2023 and project construction completed by the end of 2025.
State aid totalling EUR 341 million will be provided in the form of investment grants during project construction and annual financial support for the first 10 years of operation, equivalent to EUR 380,000/MW.
The funding comes in part from Greece’s portion of the EU-wide Recovery and Resilience Plan, which aims to mitigate the negative economic impact of the pandemic.
Competitive bidding will determine the amount of annual support for each project, which will be adjusted through a rebate mechanism if the energy storage installations earn excess market revenue.
Greece aims to deploy a cumulative 3GW of energy storage by 2030, and recently doubled that target.
The EU's new guidelines on state aid, effective from January 2022, aim to create a flexible framework to provide member states with the necessary support to meet the Green Deal targets set in December 2019, when the EU announced the target to become a by 2050. The first carbon neutral continent.
Corentin Baschet of renewable energy consultancy Clean Horizon said there are many energy storage market drivers in Greece, including strong government support.
