GREECE

Lignite dominated Greece’s electricity system for decades, but the country only has four operating coal units at two power stations remaining as of December 2025. Greece joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) in 2019, with the government announcing that it would close all coal plants by 2028. In 2020, the country’s biggest electric power company, Public Power Corporation (PPC), decided to cease operating its existing lignite coal plants by 2023, leaving just its 660 megawatt (MW) Ptolemaida Unit 5, which was commissioned in February 2023, to operate until 2028. In April 2022, the Greek government announced that it intended to keep all of its coal plants available until 2028 amidst the prospect of a total Russian fossil gas cutoff.

In April 2021, PPC announced that the Ptolemaida plant would end coal use earlier than planned, by 2025, due to rising carbon permit prices. In January 2024, PPC revised this timeline, stating that Ptolemaida Unit 5 would cease burning coal in 2026. Coal power generation in Greece reached a record low in May 2024, and PPC indicated that the country could become coal free by 2026. In 2025, the retirement of the 995 MW Agios Dimitrios power station was postponed until May 15, 2026, amid energy security concerns. Despite this postponement, plans to fully phase out coal in Greece remain set for 2026.

Greece’s evolving coal phaseout pathway is situated within the European Union’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (“NDC 3.0”), submitted in November 2025, which introduces an indicative 2035 emissions reduction target, reinforces the phase-down of unabated coal power, and reaffirms the objective of climate neutrality by 2050.