Power utility PPC plans to develop five pumped-storage hydropower stations promising a total capacity of 1,407 MW, while a tender to offer a development contract for the first of these projects is expected to be staged within 2024.

The five projects, expected to require investments of more than one billion euros, will significantly boost PPC’s existing portfolio of pumped-storage hydropower stations, currently offering a total capacity of 696 MW.

Terna Energy’s development of a 680-MW pumped-storage hydropower station in Amfilohia, northwestern Greece, now in progress, will add to the country’s overall PSH capacity.

The first of PPC’s five prospective pumped-storage hydropower stations, a 148-MW unit, is planned to be developed at the Kardia lignite station, just south of Thessaloniki.

Among the five projects, it is worth noting that the Kardia project’s licensing procedure has progressed to the most advanced stage – an environmental permit has been obtained – and, subsequently, will be the first to be developed.

As for PPC’s four other pumped-storage hydropower stations, the company just submitted energy storage license applications to a June licensing cycle.

Two of PPC’s four projects, each with capacities of 460 MW, are planned to be developed at Lake Vegoritida and Sfikia, both in Greece’s north. The new Sfikia project will come as an addition to PPC’s existing pumped-storage hydropower station in the same area.

The other two PPC projects are planned to be developed at former lignite mines, one in Megalopolis, central Peloponnese, the other at Mavropigi, close to Ptolemaida, in the country’s north.

The overall capacity of the country’s pumped-storage hydropower stations will need to rise to 2,500 MW if the updated National Energy and Climate Plan’s RES target, aiming for 80 percent of the energy mix by 2030, is to be achieved.