GREECE

Lignite dominated Greece’s electricity system for decades, but the country only has four operating coal plants remaining as of mid-2024. Greece joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance 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), had decided to cease operating its existing lignite coal plants by 2023, leaving just its 660 megawatt (MW) Ptolemaida 5 unit, which was commissioned in February 2023, to operate until 2028. Then, in April 2021, PPC announced the Ptolemaida plant would end coal use earlier, by 2025, because of rising carbon permit prices. However, in April 2022, the Greek government announced that it would keep all of its coal plants available until 2028 amidst the prospect of a total Russian fossil gas cutoff. Coal power generation in Greece reached a record low in May 2024, and PPC expected that the country could be coal free by 2026.