Could a crowdfunded solar power campaign help solve Greek energy problems – and add a spark to the country’s economy? Environmental pressure group Greenpeace, which claims the troubled country’s dependence on imported fossil fuels is “one of the most unacknowledged causes of the Greek crisis” believes so.
Greece is facing a depression on a scale arguably comparable to the U.S. Great Depression of the late 1920s. Huge unemployment rates and a dramatic drop in family incomes of more than 40 percent have Greek citizens pondering what the impacts will be of the new bail-out agreement. Unending austerity and lack of hope are all it seems the future has to offer.
But may there may be a seemingly unconventional way out of all this. With six out of every 10 Greek households struggling to pay their energy bills it is high time that Greece seized upon its greatest and still largely unexploited asset: the sun.
This solution has promise. We can say this because, back in the turbulent decade of the 1970s that saw two major global energy crises, the Greek government offered tax incentives to households for solar water heaters and a national policy was aimed at saving power. That led to hundreds of thousands of households installing solar heaters and significantly reduced energy bills. Equally important, a new industry was born and soon solar heaters became one of Greece’s finest export products. It seemed then that the sun had done its part to help Greece work its way out of a tight spot.
At the end of July, Greenpeace activists had staged a protest on the island of Rhodes, in the Aegean Sea. They unfurled a 600 square meter banner with the message ‘Oil is fueling Greek debt’ emblazoned across it, pointing it towards an oil fired power plant currently under construction.
“Rhodes has an energy shortage problem, and it’s funny, because Rhodes has been called the ‘island of the sun’, and it has this tremendous solar potential,” Takis Grigoriou, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Greece, told CNBC in a phone interview.
Greece is heavily dependent on oil, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) reporting that in 2012 it accounted for, “some 45 percent of the country’s total primary energy supply (TPES).” The IEA also notes that, “Almost all the crude oils used in Greece are imported.”
Solarizing Greece would be a step in assisting the country to again stand on its own feet, on its own terms. And a step that could have significant repercussions for the rest of the sun-bathed Mediterranean region.
This way Greece can use its energy problem as measure to tackle its current financial crisis.
