Greece’s state-owned utility Public Power Corp. (PPC) has announced financing for the construction of a 550 MW solar plant. The project developed in the Lignite Center near Ptolemaida, a town in the Kozani regional unit of Western Macedonia, is expected to be completed within 2025.

The project is part of the Green Transition pillar of the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) and has a total budget of €368 million ($397.6 million).

PPC Renewables has secured a long-term loan of €294.4 million, consisting of €184 million by RRF resources and co-financing of €110.4 million from Eurobank and Piraeus Bank. The remaining 20%, amounting to €73.6 million, will be covered by the company's funds.

Construction plans consist of three different sub-areas totaling approximately 10 million m², in which approximately 950,000 PV panels of bifacial technology on single-axis trackers will be installed.

Following completion and connection, the generation of the PV plant is expected to reach 1 TWh, which equates to the needs of approximately 200,000 households. PPC says this will cover almost 2.5% of domestic electricity generation.

Last August, PPC, alongside German utility RWE, announced plans for 280 MW of new solar capacity in Greece’s former coal region in Western Macedonia. This was in addition to solar farms the two utilities were already jointly building in the country, as part of wider plans to install 3 GW of solar in mining regions.