A recent study published by Greenpeace shows that a shift to renewable energy could be a way out of the financial crisis and towards a new sustainable economy for southern European countries.
In Greece six out of ten households are struggling to pay their energy bills. Through electricity bills Greek households pay around 800 million euro a year to subsidize the oil imports providing power to the Greek islands. This amount is equal to the pension cuts that Greece's lenders forced upon the country in exhange for a thrid bail out agreement.
However, Greece could save up to 6 billion euros in energy expenses from households and businesses for the time period 2016-2025 and thousands of jobs could be created each year if adequate energy policies were implemented
The study addresses ways of combating issues of energy waste and energy poverty currently faced by a large part of the population, by proposing specific policies and economic measures to be taken for one million households and businesses over the next decade.
The proposed policies suggests energy upgrades of buildings (mainly households) as well as the use of renewable energy sources for covering energy needs (mainly those of poorer households).
The plan involves the free provision of electricity to 300,000 poor households which can be done through the installation of small photovoltaic systems (2kWp) by the Public Power Corporation (PPC) between 2016 and 2020. The installation can be financed up to 80% by using funds from carbon credit auctions while the remaining 20% can come from the new Juncker Plan.
The transition to clean energy which would require lignite divestment as well as a shift towards mass investments in solar energy parks, can create 9500 jobs annually between 2017 and 2025 throughout Greece. This option involves the PPC gradually building solar power plants reaching a total of 1.900MWp (e.g. 95 plants of 20MWp each). This would cost around €1,45 billion and would replace the Ptolemaida-5 lignite power plant currently under development (660 MW, €1,4 billion). The total economic benefit for the PPC for choosing solar over lignite in this case would be €729 million over 25 years.
By shifting to renewable energies, the Greek economy would profit by reducing oil imports by about 10,5 million barrels annually which translates to an estimated annual benefit of 460 million euros.