Greek Case Study: Field visit at Megalopolis’ energy center!

The TEESlab - Technoeconomics of Energy Systems laboratory, within the context our Horizon 2020 TIPPING⁺ project, participated in a two-day trip in Coal and Carbon Intensive Regions (CCIRs) of Megalopolis and Tripoli.

During the two-day visit, the TEESlab - Technoeconomics of Energy Systems laboratory team visited the natural gas and lignite units located in Megalopolis and met with local stakeholders from the PPC S.A. and the Municipality of Megalopolis to discuss the economic and social aspects of decarbonization. The discussions focused on the future of investments in the region aiming to increase local employment as well as critical challenges encountered during the implementation of the Just Transition Plan.

Dr. Alexandros Flamos, Serafeim Michas and Dimitra Aglamisi gained insights and discussed key finding of TIPPING⁺ on sociocultural, demographic, geographical, political and economic factors affecting the sustainability of the local community and the just transition.

In addition, Dr. Alexandros Flamos presented the results of the TIPPING⁺ Greek case study in Megalopolis at the event “Combatting Energy Poverty – Just Energy Transition”, organised by POWERPOOR, Sustainable City, TIPPING⁺ and the Municipality of Tripoli. The presentation focused on showcasing our modelling outcomes from the DREEM model assessing 3️ scenarios for the energy transition of the residential heating sector of the region. In particular, the tradeoff of using natural gas as an intermediate fuel compared to promoting electrification from the beginning was, also, pointed out.

The findings of the TIPPING⁺ research indicate that using electrification, renewable energy sources and implementing energy savings interventions could halve the final energy consumption, leading to 4 times lower emissions and increasing the sustainability of the energy transition in Megalopolis.