Greece Introduces Stricter Rules for Renewable Energy Projects

Wind turbines are barred from areas with an altitude supra 1.200 meters. Public Domain

Greece’s Ministry of Environment and Energy has launched a nationalist consultation for a caller Special Spatial Framework for Renewable Energy Sources (RES-Spatial Framework).

Aiming to equilibrium accelerated greenish modulation with biology extortion and section assemblage interests, the caller argumentation introduces a unified and importantly stricter acceptable of rules for hosting large-scale greenish vigor investments.

The model covers each large renewable and vigor retention technologies. Crucially, projects already successful cognition oregon astatine an precocious licensing stage, arsenic good arsenic rooftop star and large-scale pumped-storage hydro plants, are exempt from these caller restrictions.

Key restrictions for star (PV) parks

Horizontal Bans: New solar installations are wholly prohibited successful Natura 2000 protected areas, forests, wetlands, nationalist parks, landscapes of outstanding earthy beauty, humanities monuments (UNESCO sites/Zone A archaeological zones), undegraded cultivation terraces, roadless areas, and swimming beaches.

Land-Use Cap: To forestall overconcentration and safeguard productive cultivation land, caller star projects cannot transcend 1.5% of the full onshore country per Regional Unit.

Visual & Proximity Rules: Minimum buffer distances from residential areas are mandated, alongside mandatory visibility studies for projects sited adjacent large taste practice sites.

Key restrictions for upwind farms

Altitude & Location Bans: Wind turbines are barred from areas with an altitude supra 1.200 meters to support high-value upland ecosystems. They are besides banned successful Attica, the Thessaloniki Metropolitan Area, and connected tiny islands nether 300 quadrate kilometers (unless serving nationalist interest, similar desalination plants).

Natura 2000 Exception: Siting wrong Special Protection Areas (SPAs for birds) wrong the Natura 2000 web is permitted lone if explicitly backed by an approved Special Environmental Study and if the upwind imaginable exceeds 27 km/h (kilometers per hour)

Island Capacity: On eligible islands, full onshore sum for upwind farms is strictly capped astatine 4% per Municipal Unit.

Related: Greece to Build Largest Public Cooperative Solar Park