Oct 7 for 5 hours 100% of the grid power in Greece was from renewables. Greece’s focus is mostly on wind vs solar power, turns out they have reliable wind patterns. This is part of Greece’s long-term goals to stabilize their grid and power cost. They also have hydro.
Greece aims to more than double its green energy capacity to account for at least 70 per cent of its energy mix by 2030
Also, would like to note that starting in 2021 Germany has had multiple days of 100% from renewables, the irony is theirs is mostly solar – even being in the North is no excuse to ignore the sun!
The benefit to these countries is that it decreases their need for Russian oil. At this point I think most the European countries are wishing they had built this out faster, since they are not ready to give up their oil dependency on Russia yet. This winter will be difficult to heat housing without the Russian Oil issues due to the war, but it will also drive Europe’s move to renewables to speed up. Renewables are a true tool for economic stabilization and allow a country to be free from external influences.
Bad news, due to lack of Russian oil, Greece has had to increase use of coal and natural gas – which has put in jeopardy their national decarbonisation plan (not sure they can make their goals in the stated timeline) . Which is another driver for them to increase renewables.
That last one, the bad news, hit me hard with envy – they have a carbon goal they take so seriously they are upset that they are missing one year’s targets due to world events outside of their control. They are treating the goals as something they really wanted to hit, wouldn’t that be nice in the US?