Anyone applying for a photovoltaic park permit nowadays is likely wanting to tear their hair out, say competent officials of the Environment and Energy Ministry describing the overheating of the photovoltaic sector that has dominated the renewables market in recent years, putting businesses at risk, per market estimates.

However, despite concerns publicly expressed by renewable energy industry executives about the sustainability risk, applications for grid connection bids for new projects continue unabated, ignoring the signs of an oversupply of green energy in the market. Grid operator ADMIE has received applications for projects with a capacity of just over 1 gigawatt per month on average since the start of the year.

RES projects are increasing, and with it the problems associated with their variable production, the grid capacity and the significant deviation of the energy supplied from demand.

Clean energy (RES and large hydropower) in the first nine months of 2024, according to Green Tank’s analysis based on data from ADMIE and grid company DEDDIE, covered more than half of demand (50.2%) and was the highest of the decade (21,990 gigawatt-hours), increased by 17% compared to the corresponding period of 2023 (18,792 GWh). In the same period, green energy cuts – i.e. RES output that comes out of the system to balance demand and avoid blackout phenomena – tripled compared to the total cuts in 2023.

In January-September 2024, some 673 GWh of RES production was rejected, corresponding to 3.4% of the total energy produced from RES, when the total cuts in 2023 came to 228 GWh. In fact, this increase in cuts occurred despite the increase in electricity demand by 5.9% in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same time last year. At an exponential rate, the zero current values also increase over the same interval.

In the period January-September 2024, the price per megawatt-hour touched zero for 18 hours and moved marginally above zero for 155 hours, from 31 hours in the corresponding period of 2023.