The government plans to provide financial support to six Greek islands through the Just Transition Fund in order to tackle issues expected following planned withdrawals of local petrol-fueled power stations.

JTF support for these islands will be used to tackle sector unemployment, retrain personnel and also offer other support.

Further RES installations on islands, plus the completion of grid interconnection projects, will enable the closure of local petrol-fueled power stations in four parts of Crete – Heraklion, Lasithi, Hania, Rethymnos – plus Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Rhodes and Mykonos.

This step will help align Greece with clean-energy EU initiatives for European islands. The RES potential of Crete and the Aegean islands is extremely high.

Greece produces greenhouse gas emissions of 9.2 tons per capita, annually, compared to the EU average of 8.8 tons, according to an official JTF report.

This has been mainly attributed to Greece’s dependence on fossil fuels, still providing over 30 percent of overall electricity generation through production at the country’s two lignite mining centers of west Macedonia, in the country’s north, and Megalopoli, in the Peloponnese; and close to 10 percent through diesel-based generation on the islands.

The government has committed to closing high-polluting diesel-fueled power stations, the JTF report noted.

The production of every KWh on non-interconnected islands costs the Greek power utility PPC between 1.5 and 16 times more than the utility’s average generation cost nationwide, according to recent company data.