Electricity

Heat pumps, electric cars expected to contribute little to power demand growth in Greece

Heat pumps and electric cars expected to bring small rise in power demand for Greece

Photo: freepik.com

Published

July 10, 2024

Country

Comments

comments icon

0

Share

Published:

July 10, 2024

Country:

Comments:

comments icon

0

Share

Contrary to earlier estimates, heat pumps and electric cars are not expected to significantly raise electricity demand in Greece.

Heat pumps and electric cars, along with other new green technologies, are the cornerstones of the European Green Deal and the REPowerEU plan. They electrify transportation and heating and cooling on the path to achieving the net zero emissions goal.

The Hellenic Electricity Distribution Operator (HEDNO) recently published its scenarios for the years up to 2030 concerning demand in the distribution network.

The grid is ready to accommodate any number of electric cars

HEDNO examined four scenarios:

1. Electric cars reach 30% of total car sales by 2030, which is the government’s stated goal based on the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP);

2. An extreme path with electric cars reaching 90% by 2030 if the European Union decides to phase out internal combustion engines;

3. Scenario 1, together with large projects, based on applications by large network users and including new demand from harbors, hospitals, industries, airports etc;

4. Scenario 2, together with large capacity applications currently under consideration.

Demand for each scenario for the years between 2024 and 2030, in terawatt-hours (HEDNO), Greece
Demand for each scenario for the years between 2024 and 2030, in terawatt-hours (HEDNO), Greece

It should be noted that for electric cars, HEDNO calculated an average consumption of 20 kWh per 100 kilometers. Last year, the operator’s CEO, Anastasios Manos, said the grid is ready to accommodate any number of electric cars, even supporting a 90% penetration goal.

Electrification of heating already underway even without heat pumps

When it comes to heat pumps, HEDNO estimates their additional demand to be 0.2 TWh per year. It based the assumption on the national plan to upgrade 438,000 houses and 170,000 commercial buildings of the services sector by 2030.

HEDNO further highlights there are already times of high demand when electricity substitutes other forms of heating in buildings through the use of air conditioning. It means heat pumps will likely bring a smaller rise in demand than originally thought. Similarly, in large commercial buildings, heat pumps are expected to substitute not just heating systems that are based on fossil fuels, but also central air conditioning units that already use electricity.

Based on all of the above, we can exclude scenario 2, as it seems the European Union and Greece would postpone the proposed phaseout of internal combustion engines. What is left for electric cars is scenario 1, where the rise of demand is smaller than 3 TWh in a six-year span. Even if we add the 0.2 TWh per year from heat pumps, the rise is rather small.

On the other hand, the bulk of new demand is seen coming from new user connections and large user applications that HEDNO says it would try to accommodate in its network.

Comments (0)

Be the first one to comment on this article.

Enter Your Comment
Please wait... Please fill in the required fields. There seems to be an error, please refresh the page and try again. Your comment has been sent.

Related Articles

serbia wind farm plandiste nis met dubravka djedovic

Government of Serbia interested in taking over Plandište wind project

25 July 2025 - Plandište is one of the projects that obtained feed-in tariffs under the first quota of 500 MW for wind power plants in Serbia

Project 81 MW solar park on coal mine in Montenegro

Project underway for 81 MW solar park on coal mine in Montenegro

24 July 2025 - The Government of Montenegro gave a provisional green light for a solar power plant of 81.1 MW in peak capacity on coal land in Pljevlja

croatia rp global novalja solar ebrd loan

RP Global gets EUR 12.2 million loan for Novalja solar project

24 July 2025 - In late April, Austrian company RP Global began the construction of the Novalja PV plant at the Zaglava site on the island of Pag

solarpower europe report 2025

EU faces first annual solar installation decline since 2015 – report

24 July 2025 - The EU is set to install less new solar in 2025 than it did in 2024 - the first annual drop in a decade, according to SolarPower Europe