Most EU member states, including Greece, are still far from achieving the target of producing 12 percent of primary energy production from renewable energy sources (RES) by 2010, according to the European Commission’s latest survey in the field. Greece’s record was 5.24 percent in 2004, but its rank among the 25 is relatively satisfactory as 14 states were below 5 percent — of which seven were below 2 percent. Only five countries, Latvia, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Portugal, have already attained the target. The Commission predicts that at best the rate will rise to 9 percent in the Union as a whole by 2010.

Greece’s wind parks totaled a capacity of 465 megawatts at the end of 2004 and the country ranked in ninth position. Germany was first with 16,629MW and Spain second with 8,263MW. Europe accounts for 73 percent of the global production of wind power. As regards solar energy, the EU produces 10 percent of the world’s total installed panel area, and Greece is second among member states, with 2.82 million square meters.

Greece’s installed hydroelectric power capacity from small stations in 2004 rose 57.3 percent to 70MW, more than in any other member state, but the country is far behind other partners (the capacity of the big stations of the Public Power Corporation is not included).

The Commission is funding new wind parks totaling a capacity of 15,000MW and small hydroelectric power plants with a total capacity of 2,000MW in the 2005-2008 period.