A very informative piece here on alternative energy in Greece,  by Thrasy Petropoulos in Spero News.

I was staggered to learn that windfarm applications in Greece amount to an enormous 34,000 MW - almost 3 times the installed total capacity of existing electricity capacity - some 12,500 MW - of Europe's oldest nation. Obviously, they're not going to get that far - developers must be factoring in a high failure rate in planning applications, although getting past the bureaucrats has apparently got easier;  36 permits used to be required to site and connect a wind park, now it's only 9.

One of our wind stocks by the way, is Greek - C. Rokas SA.

A similar story with solar power - the existing target / project for 600MW, including 100MW on Crete is 6 times oversubscribed. I was recently in Athens and was struck by how many solar thermal units I saw on roofs. I was more struck though by the apparent wealth that did not exist there until recently. The economy was last recorded as growing at a very healthy 3.8% per annum (annualised Q3 2007) and Greece has become a kind of gateway to the Balkans for foreign investors.

A fast-growing, energy hungry economy makes the shift to alternative energy a lot easier. Given all of these, Greece deserves much more attention.

Yesterday, I was watching Sky News, waiting to see the Governator's endorsement of Senator McCain, who was lined up shoulder to shoulder with Mayor Giuliani. What I hadn't realised until that moment was that the announcement was taking place at the HQ of Solar Integrated Technologies, immediately following a tour of the premises.



So it was to some irritation of the assorted news teams, that the President & CEO of SIT, Randy MacEwen, instead of making a perfunctory introduction, launched into a 5 minute pitch about his business on live TV all round the world - to which I can only say, good going !