Greece frames solar power’s zero prices as informal consumer support

The Greek government is reluctant to remunerate photovoltaic producers for their high losses from zero and negative hourly wholesale prices.

In the first three months of 2026, renewable energy curtailments in Greece doubled from a year earlier. There were 239.5 hours with zero or negative prices, up from just 13 in the corresponding period of 2025, according to official data from the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO or ADMIE).

As a result, owners of solar farms with contracts for difference (CfDs) are suffering huge losses. They don’t get paid if there are two or more consecutive hours of zero price in the day-ahead market.

According to the Panhellenic Federation of Photovoltaic Producers (POSPIEF), they lost more than 60% of their potential revenue in April. It is a financial threat to their viability, as many plants are now seen operating in the red for the entirety of this year.

The sector has asked for a remuneration mechanism that would spread curtailment costs more fairly across the market, thus reimbursing the most affected producers. Solar power plant operators also urged for reimbursement for zero-price hours.

A de facto support scheme for consumers

However, the government does not appear to be in a hurry to enact such measures anytime soon. It sees these losses as a net benefit for final consumers amid the acute energy crisis.

Tsafos: Zero prices shield market from three-digit wholesale prices in euros

Earlier this week, the issue was discussed in Parliament, where Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy Nikos Tsafos said the average wholesale price this month was EUR 89 per MWh as a result of many hours with prices at zero. “If not for them, we would be facing three-digit numbers, as high as EUR 150 per MWh to EUR 200 per MWh,” he stated.

Remunerating producers would, in essence, be taking away the country’s benefit from low prices, in Tsafos’s view.

The deputy minister said the sector has asked for tens or hundreds of millions of euros of remuneration that “would have to come from somewhere.”

Tsafos specified that solar producers’ contracts specifically cover the eventuality of zero prices, therefore it was known to them beforehand.

Based on the above, the government currently views the sector’s problem as a de facto support scheme for consumers. The situation also lessens the need to tax windfall profits elsewhere in the market, similar to what happened in the previous energy crisis of 2022-2023.

Remuneration not likely

Market players do not currently expect a realistic chance for any such remuneration. “If in theory this happened, consumers would essentially pay for the solar investment bubble,” said the Chairman of the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Energy Producers (SPEF) Stelios Loumakis.

He added that things are expected to further deteriorate: “Since new PV capacity is added at a record pace, I don’t see a solution to the problem regardless of how much storage is installed.”