For her off-plan building and the changes in current prices the Minister of Environment and Energy spoke, Theodoros Skylakakisto and in “Today» with them Dimitris Oikonomou and Akis Pavlopoulos.

First, regarding the changes in real estate, he underlined that off-plan building is something that will stop in the sense that around 2027-2028 the country will have a plan everywhere.

“It’s one thing to say you’re inside or outside the settlements, and another thing to say you’re inside or outside the plan. We are currently making a 700 million euro investment, the largest since the beginning of the Greek state, where we are putting local urban plans everywhere. In these it will be predicted where you can build and what”, as he said to complete:

“Until this happened, the Council of State came and took some unconstitutional ways out of the plan, mainly the blind plots, and we are legislating on this, making some additional interventions. From here on, we will also make some other arrangements, so that one has more properties to build inside a settlement than outside, because the latter has an additional burden on society as a whole. We have been shouting for decades about unplanned construction, but we have not been shouting enough about the fact that urban planning has not progressed for decades. So there is a need to increase the available land within the settlements, so that it becomes cheaper and we can move forward.”

“I predict a collapse in natural gas prices, gradually this year”

Then, asked about the announcements of cheaper electricity, Mr. Skylakakis pointed out that “at the moment we have a demand of 4 to 10.5 GigaWatts, which plays according to the season, with the average price being at 6. There is a lower demand in the fall, a little more in the winter and a lot in the summer”, while he informed that currently 8 GigaWatts of photovoltaics and 5 GigaWatts of wind power are installed and in the coming years 13 GigaWatts of photovoltaics and 7 GigaWatts of wind power are expected with a huge addition of Renewable Sources, creating an excessive offer that will drop prices.

At the same time, he said that the prices of natural gas today are twice what they were in 2019, while the prices of pollutants, which are the other part of the cost that affects, are at triple levels. “At this point the storage is very little, but we have a large project in Amfilochia that is underway with 600 MegaWatts of pumped storage, as well as two successful tenders. “Also, with the new bill we are fully liberalizing storage, enabling those producers who have solar from 2019 onwards to put in a battery, avoiding the cuts.”

Finally, he said bills will be consistently cheaper in the fall and spring, rise in the summer and fall again. “Overall there will be a drop that as Renewable Sources are added it will drop. I foresee a collapse in gas prices, gradually this year,” he concluded.