Greece's Public Power on track to phase out 40% of targeted coal capacity by year-end
ATHENS, June 24 (Reuters) - Greece's Public Power Corp. (PPC) will have decommissioned by the end of the year more than a third of a total of 3.4 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity that it plans to phase out by 2023, its chief executive officer said on Thursday.
PPC, which is 51% state-owned and the country's biggest power utility, expects to have all its coal-powered plants switched off by 2025, earlier than an original target of 2028, to reduce carbon emissions under Greece's plan to help the European Union meet its climate change targets.
"We have already decommissioned coal plants with net capacity of 1.1 gigawatt since 2020, while another 0.25 gigawatt are scheduled to be decommissioned within the year," CEO Georgios Stassis told a shareholders meeting.
"So, 40% of the (total) coal plants capacity which our plan stipulates by 2023 will be decommissioned by the end of the year," he said.
Under its strategy to shift to clean energy, PPC aims to boost its renewable energy portfolio to 1.5 gigawatts by the end of 2023 and it has already secured the construction of 1 gigawatts, Stassis said. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou Editing by Mark Potter)
