Priority to renewable energy

Environment Minister Kostis Hatzidakis has decided to cut the red tape on renewal energy projects by dispensing some of them from environmental impact assessments and simplifying the approval procedures for others.

The aim of these decisions is to reduce the time from the submission of a plan to implement a renewable energy project to its approval to two years.

A newly voted environmental law has provided incentives to build solar farms with a total capacity from 0.5 to 1 megawatts.

Previous legislation dispensed solar farms up to 0.5 MW from the environmental impact assessment; the current one raises this to 1 MW.

Also, solar farms with a capacity from 1-10 MW are put into a category allowing rapid use-of-land approval for projects. The previous capacity limit was 2 MW.

Wind farms, whose installation is often opposed by some locals and...