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Date & Time
December 14, 2023; 10h00 - 11h00 CET
Speakers
Description
By 2030, Greece’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) defines energy efficiency targets and measures to be implemented across all sectors. Under EU regulation, Greece has set targets for annual energy savings for the 2017-2020 and 2021-2030 periods. In the building sector, the government is strengthening building codes and has launched a number of investment programmes that aim to improve, among others, the energy performance of public and private buildings. In the transport sector, Greece is supporting the uptake of electromobility and is investing in improving charging infrastructure. Measures for industry energy efficiency include energy audits and support for efficient equipment, mainly for heating.
The main question is how far is Greece for achieving these targets?
Recordings
Key Messages
- In Greece, primary and final energy consumption decreased from 2005 to 2021. A large part of the reductions originates from the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- After the COVID-19 pandemic, the final energy consumption has risen in all sectors, especially in transport. The level in 2021 stays below the 2010-2021 average, and Greece achieved its 2021 energy efficiency targets.
- Energy poverty is on the rise in Greece: 17.5 % of the population was unable to keep the home adequately warm in 2021. Greece releases an action plan to combat energy poverty.
- The Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme (EEOS) plays a vital role in Greece's energy savings objective: the EEOS represents 20% (1,460 Ktoe) of the overall projected cumulative savings (7,299 ktoe) under Article 7 (now 8) of the Energy Efficiency Directive. The EEOS provided higher energy savings than expected between 2017 and 2020.
- Indicative Pros of Greece's energy efficiency policy:
- High untapped potential to make energy savings
- On track to meet its 2030 target for primary and final energy consumption
- Successfully using Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) to fund residential and public buildings to be more energy efficient
- High importance of the wider introduction of energy services and the successful continuation of the EEOS
- Indicative Cons of Greece's energy efficiency policy:
- Need for mobilization of additional private fund for energy renovations
- Need for continuation of actions that will mitigate energy poverty
- Need for creating a functioning market for energy services
- Low number of checks on products covered by eco-design and energy labelling
- Greece is making progress, but continued efforts are needed to achieve its 2030 energy efficiency targets.
Presentation
Q&A
Due to time constraints during the webinar, some questions were left unanswered. The authors have provided written responses to those questions below.
Q: Can you explain the major drop of final energy in Households sector from 5,500 ktoe in 2011 to about 3,700 ktoe in 2014? (slide 6)
Due to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that started to affect the Greek economy over the following years, the disposable income of the households decreased sharply and as a result a fall in final energy consumption of this sector was also observed, deteriorating the energy poverty phenomenon in parallel.
Q: Can you please explain the growing divergence as of 2030 between PEC and FEC? (slide 13)
Primary energy consumption (PEC) measures total domestic energy demand, while final energy consumption (FEC) refers to what end users actually consume. The difference relates mainly to what the energy sector needs itself and to transformation and distribution losses. In the case of Greece, the increasing gap in future between PEC and FEC can be mainly explained due to the increasing penetration of RES, which will lead to faster decrease in FEC.
Q: An initial slide showed that Greece achieved its energy efficiency targets but then there was a statement at a later slide that “Greece failed to achieve the energy savings target over 2017-2020”. What was actually achieved? Are we talking about different targets? If this is the case, it appears that there may be too many targets and that may cause confusion. Any comments?
As mentioned during the presentation, Greece’s PEC and FEC have been decreasing considerably since 2008, while their lowest level was recorded in 2020. Although both indicators increased in 2021, they were still below the 2019 levels. In 2021, Greece’s PEC and FEC were below the levels set for the 2020 targets, reflecting the government’s goal of achieving strong economic growth and improving energy efficiency and keeping energy consumption flat. The statement that “Greece failed to achieve the energy savings target over 2017-2020” refers to the Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme (EEOS) that overachieved the target of 14 PJ, reaching 61.4 PJ of cumulated energy savings and despite the fact that the total cumulated energy savings from 2017 to 2020 were 101 PJ, Greece fell short of achieving the target of 140 PJ. However, we can understand the importance of such scheme in terms of energy savings.
To sum up, Article 3 (sets PEC and FEC target for 2030) and Article 7 (EEOS) have different targets. Greece is reaching the target of Article 3 (see table below), while it is worth noting the country's inability to achieve the target of Article 7, as discussed during the presentation.
Q: Line 4 of the table on slide 18 shows that 196 ktoe of energy savings will be realised in 2021-2030 (cumulatively) through Energy Service Companies (ESCos). This is additional to line 2 (energy upgrading of public buildings). What concrete energy efficiency improvements are we talking about here?
Policy Measures (PM) 2 (Energy upgrading of public buildings) and 4 (Improvement in energy efficiency through energy service companies) are different PM in different sectors. The annual savings in both PM seem to be the same (i.e. 4 ktoe) over 2021-2030, but they are not the same. This can be seen from the different total cumulative EU savings that are 208 ktoe in PM2 and 196 ktoe in PM4. The rounding of annual savings over 2021-2030 in both PM leads to the same number (i.e. 4 ktoe).
Further reading
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Last update: January 8, 2024
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