Can Renewable Energy shape a new geo-economic paradigm for the EU, Greece and its Neighbourhood?

The “Winds of Change” project aimed to produce thorough analysis, and initiate discussions and a constructive dialogue between key stakeholders, as well as to build bridges of mutual trust and collaboration on green transition with the deployment of renewable energy (RE) sources, notably offshore wind energy, for a new energy model for Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.

It employed a two-pronged approach: a regional dimension of a connected RE production and distribution in Greece’s neighbourhood, and a domestic dimension with a focused socio-economic impact study on offshore wind energy power, both providing evidence and substantiated analysis to foster new and strengthen existing dialogues among key stakeholders looking to advance policy making and investments in RE technology for Greece, the Eastern Mediterranean region, the EEA Donor States and the EU.

The socio-economic impact study identified ‎evidence and analysis on the introduction of offshore wind power in Greece’s energy mix. Specifically, this ‎study dovetails and supports the regulatory analysis conducted by ELETAEN and the stakeholder ‎dialogues in Greece to date. At the same time, it enables Greece to lead an informed ‎discussion with its neighbours on offshore wind power production for a regional RE ‎model.

‎By exploring the geopolitical state of play in the Eastern Mediterranean, this second study aimed to analyse ‎the configuration of energy geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean, which have been shaped by the ‎discovery of sizeable natural gas resources in the region about a decade ago and by various energy ‎monetisation projects, which included the connection of the Eastern Mediterranean with the energy ‎grid of the European energy market. As the pandemic and the European Green Deal have shifted the ‎focus from hydrocarbon to RE in the Eastern Mediterranean, it hoped to ‎contribute to the identification of opportunities and risks for the successful development of a RE grid and offshore wind power farms in the Eastern Mediterranean.