An energy ministry plan promoting the establishment of energy communities is receiving German support through GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), a financing mechanism of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), as was highlighted at the ongoing Thessaloniki International Fair over the weekend.

The GIZ mechanism, which provides support to plans and initiatives in southeast Europe, is backing the Greek energy ministry’s plan for energy communities as a result of an agreement reached by the two sides for the development of decentralized RES installations and community RES projects.

Energy communities offer decentralized, locally generated energy solutions.

Two leading energy ministry officials, Aliki Skliri and Dimitris Tsekeris, a close associate of energy minister Giorgos Stathakis, are scheduled to visit Berlin for a September 15 meeting at the foreign ministry on the Greek-German energy communities plan, officially titled “Technical assistance for renewable energies and energy efficiency in Greece”. It is being co-funded by the European Commission.

GIZ is currently also advising Greece’s energy ministry on needed legal framework revisions, which, it has stressed, are “crucial for further RES and energy efficiency development.”

GIZ has also collaborated with Greece’s energy ministry in the recent past, in 2015, as an adviser for the country’s new RES regulatory framework.