Accelerating investment in renewables is the best option for reducing costs, the environment and reducing dependence on russian gas. On the contrary, the return to lignite is neither climatically nor economically advantageous, nor does it significantly reduce dependence on Russian fossil gas.
These conclusions are drawn from Green Tank study entitled “Electricity generation and decoupling from Russian gas in Greece” which considers two different policy options: the extension of the life of existing lignite plants and their operation at the maximum, legally permissible levels and the forward-looking development of renewable energy sources. The conclusions are coded as follows:
-The scenario of returning to lignite saves much less russian mineral gas compared to the scenarios that achieve greater RES penetration provided that 1 GW of new wind and photovoltaic power is installed per year in the three years 2022-2024.
-Even if in 2022 the burning of lignite to the maximum legally allowed by offering more than 10 TWh in the system (almost twice the amount of lignite power generation in 2020 and 2021), the savings in Russian gas that will be achieved in relation to its levels 2021 is smaller than the one that will result from the installation of 1 GW of new wind and 1 GW of new photovoltaic power.
– The scenario of maximizing the use of lignite leads to emissions of 149 million tons of CO2 in the period 2022-2030, exceeding the corresponding quantities of the existing ESEK (thus derailing the country’s carbon budget for the electricity sector. Maintaining current CO2 levels in the stock market of pollutants by 2030 (a possibly conservative estimate), the scenario of a return to lignite will burden the operating costs of the country’s power generation system with about 5.4 billion euros and 5.8 billion euros.
“The results of the comparative analysis show that the return to lignite does not serve the detoxification from Russian fossil gas while undermining national climate targets. On the contrary, accelerating the penetration of properly located RES, especially for the three years 2022-2024, is by far the best energy strategy to drastically reduce the exposure of our national economy to Russian fossil gas. In addition, this option will lead to much lower costs of CO2 emissions of the country’s electricity generation, while at the same time, will keep Greece on track to achieve the national climate target to reduce clean greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by at least 55% compared to the levels of 1990 “, said Nikos Mantzaris, policy analyst of Green Tank.
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