Abstract
Greece has made a significant development in the energy sector; however, the decarbonization process still lags behind. In the awaking of the economic crisis, in 2009, the country was highly dependent on lignite for electricity production, and the energy market was controlled by a monopoly of the public power corporation. In order to comply with the EU regulation, and the imposed memorandum of understanding, Greece tried to reform the energy sector by liberating the energy market through market initiatives and more concretely through privatization and liberalization. At the same time, a number of mostly incentive-based instruments have managed to reduce emissions by increasing energy efficiency and the penetration of the renewable energy sources. Nonetheless, the highly bureaucratic and complex administrative system controlled by a centralized state and the presence of strong lobbies often overshadow these efforts. In order to increase energy security, Greece is currently building two new lignite plants prolonging that way its reliance on coal. With the entrance of the country in a period of economic stability, it is important to revaluate the energy planning, design a coherent long-term climate policy, reform the energy sector, and try to overcome the various barriers in the way to energy transition.
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The author would like to thank Jordi Roca Jusmet and Brayton Noll for the useful comments and Jörg Kemmerzell and Michèle Knodt for the useful feedback throughout the process.
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Tsagkari, M. (2020). Energy Governance in Greece. In: Knodt, M., Kemmerzell, J. (eds) Handbook of Energy Governance in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73526-9_12-1
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