GREECE

Greece has a very substantial wind resource potential, the exploitation of which is supported by the Government as part of its National Programme to substitute renewable energies for imported fossil fuels.

The systematic study of wind potential in the Greek islands was begun by the Greek Public Power Corporation (DEI) in the mid-1970’s. It has continued, aided by the European Union (Thermie Programme) and the Centre for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES), the national organisation for the promotion of renewable energies and the certifying authority for wind turbines. In 1995 the Greek Government set a target of 350 MW installed wind power capacity to be in place by 2005 and provided financial assistance programmes to assist this policy.

The utilisation of Greece’s wind resource has been successfully implemented by locating wind turbines in many of the country’s isolated and island communities. Hitherto, these areas could only be expensively supplied with electricity and yet there were abundant supplies of wind power available. By end-1999 there were 306 wind turbines representing 107 MW of installed capacity, a more than doubling of the 1998 capacity. Until recent years DEI owned about 90% of wind generators, but the Government’s lifting of the restriction on privately generated power has promoted great interest in the private sector to develop wind power projects. The island of Crete now has the country’s first privately-developed wind farm, consisting of seventeen 600 kW turbines.

COUNTRY NOTES (WIND ENERGY)

Argentina || Canada || China || Denmark || Germany || Greece || India || Ireland || Italy || Japan || Netherlands || Spain || Sweden || United Kingdom || United States Of America