According to preliminary figures made available by the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Companies (Helapco), Greece connected 1.36 GW of new PV capacity to the grid in 2022. Of this, 341.5 MW was connected to Greece’s transmission grid and about 1020 MW was connected to Greece’s distribution grids.

These figures are preliminary because Greece is yet to officially announce the number of its new PV deployments for 2022. The nation's renewable energy sources operator, Dapeep, has only published data covering the period until the end of September 2022. Dapeep’s data show that Greece installed 932 MW of new photovoltaic capacity in the first three quarters of last year, but does not include installations under net metering, which are announced separately by the country’s distribution grid operator Hedno.

Helapco's more complete statistical look at the PV market shows that net-metered systems comprise only a small fraction of the 1.36 GW of newly installed solar.

Indeed, according to Helapco, Greece’s mainland grid connected 109.4 MW of net-metered PV, while Greece’s small independently operating which operate stand-alone networks added a further 1.4 MW of net-metered PV capacity. Interestingly, 5.4 MW of the net-metering capacity installed in 2022 on the mainland grid comprises virtual net metering systems.

Given the fact that commercial net-metered system installations more than doubled that of residential systems, the Greek government wants to boost the residential segment by introducing a new generous rebate scheme aiming specifically at residential solar-plus-storage. The government said the new scheme will be published shortly, possibly before the end of March, 2023.

Fixed tariffs continue driving growth

The newly installed PV capacity for 2022 is at least three times more than the 422 MW of new photovoltaics added in 2021. It comprises systems awarded premium tariffs via competitive tenders, small solar farms up to 500 kW that are entitled to feed-in tariffs, and net metered systems.

Helapco said that of the new systems connected to the grid, 200 or about 20 MW are connected to low voltage, 1,602 systems or about 890 MW are connected to medium voltage. and about 341.5 MW are linked to high voltage.