An increasing number of local and foreign companies are interested in building energy storage facilities in sun-loving Greece using battery technology. In fact, the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) has been receiving applications for permits concerning battery storage plants.
Specialist battery company Sunlight, a member of Olympia Group, will significantly increase manufacturing capacity and create new jobs at its state-of-the-art plant in Xanthi, northern Greece, following a €25 million, 10-year loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) which was confirmed earlier in Athens today.
Image: SUNLIGHT. A €105 million (US$127.6 million) push to develop low-cost, environmentally-friendly lithium-ion battery technology by Sunlight, a designer and manufacturer of batteries headquartered in Greece, will receive €49.9 million in grant funding.
This is not the only green power project Hive Energy is looking to build in Greece. pv magazine learned that the company has at least 250 MW of additional PV capacity under its portfolio in the country that has been labeled as a strategic investment by the same government committee in the past. These projects are not yet built, however.
Enel Green Power is another large company that has already included batteries in two renewable energy projects in Larissa – 83.7 MW and 50 MW. “Although Greece did not take timely steps and the regulatory framework is delayed, we are proceeding with innovative investments in storage,” according to its head for Europe Aristotelis Handavas.
Pictured is a project by the company in Spain. Greece’s Inter-ministerial Committee, chaired by the Minister of Development and Investments and attended by several other ministers across the cabinet, agreed on Thursday to grant a new hydrogen project the so-called status of a “strategic investment” for the country.