{The electrical} interconnection between Crete and mainland Greece was accomplished and has been in operation since Might 2025. The completion of this infrastructure challenge is an enormous step in Greece’s power transition. Connecting the island of Crete with the mainland permits the nation to lastly faucet into the plentiful wind and photo voltaic power potential on Crete and to change off previous and polluting energy vegetation. On the similar time, the Ariadne interconnection builds the inspiration for advancing inexperienced power within the Japanese Mediterranean. Daniel Argyropoulos studies.
Credit: Ariadne Interconnection.
In Greek mythology, Ariadne, daughter of the Cretan king Minos, gave Theseus a sword, so he might combat towards the Minotaur, and an extended, rolled-up string. Theseus went off to Crete and killed the Minotaur hidden in a labyrinth. After defeating the beast, Theseus used the string to search out his method out of the labyrinth. Ever since, Ariadne’s string has been a metaphor for locating a method out of a troublesome scenario.
Ariadne’s string, in trendy occasions, just isn’t made out of wool however out of copper, and spans the Aegean Sea over a size of 335 kilometres. The Ariadne interconnection is a brand new energy transmission line that connects Attica on mainland Greece and the island of Crete. It was accomplished on the finish of 2024 after three years of building and has been in operation because the finish of Might 2025.
Constructing the interconnection was technically complicated and difficult. Two cables needed to be positioned at depths of as much as 1,200 metres into the rocky seabed of the Aegean Sea. In keeping with the growing firm, it is without doubt one of the deepest interconnections worldwide. When in full operation, will probably be in a position to transmit 1,000 MW {of electrical} energy, sufficient to cowl the power wants of the entire island throughout a lot of the 12 months.
Map of the Ariadne interconnection. Credit: Eric Gaba – Sting | Wikimedia Commons, Public Area. Personal design.
A milestone for the power transition
The Ariadne interconnection, along with a smaller interconnection between Crete and the Peloponnese accomplished in 2022, is a significant milestone within the power transition of Greece. Up till just lately, {the electrical} system of Crete was remoted, that means that each one power utilized by the 650,000 inhabitants of Crete and the roughly 5 million vacationers visiting the island yearly needed to be generated on the island. A big half thereof remains to be produced from previous and inefficient energy vegetation burning heavy oil and diesel. This not solely results in excessive CO2 emissions but in addition to very excessive technology prices.
These prices are handed on to all electrical energy shoppers in Greece by way of a Public Service Obligation (PSO), which is about by the federal government and is a part of the utility invoice. As shoppers on the non-interconnected islands (NII) should not charged greater tariffs than shoppers on the mainland, the PSO is used to subsidise the a lot greater manufacturing prices within the islands. The entire quantity collected by way of the PSO is round €600-700 million per 12 months. On the family degree, the PSO usually accounts for 4-8% of a typical family’s electrical energy invoice, relying on the quantity of electrical energy consumed.
In Crete’s remoted electrical system, there was solely little house for renewable energies, regardless of the spectacular photo voltaic and wind potential. Renewable power, in principle, might provide a big share of the power wanted on the island. However as wind and photo voltaic are variable sources of power by their nature, their integration is difficult in an remoted electrical energy grid. Versatile back-up technology is important to fulfill demand for power when there may be little wind or solar. The prevailing inventory of previous energy vegetation was solely in a position to do that to a restricted extent.
As a consequence of this technical limitation, as of as we speak, the share of renewable power within the electrical energy provide of Crete is restricted to twenty%, with the remaining 80% being produced from fossil gas. As compared, the share of electrical energy produced from wind power, photo voltaic PV and hydropower in your entire nation had already reached 50% in 2024, up from about 20% in 2015, primarily because of the robust growth of wind power and photo voltaic PV lately.
Connecting Crete with the a lot bigger mainland electrical energy system lastly ends the stalemate. Again-up capability is not wanted on the island as versatile energy vegetation on mainland Greece can cowl the demand sooner or later. With the interconnection in operation, the previous energy vegetation will be regularly shut down, decreasing the carbon footprint of Crete by as much as 500,000 tonnes of CO2 yearly, as calculated by the growing firm.
Additionally, the nation’s shoppers are anticipated to collectively save thousands and thousands of euros yearly as a big share of the PSO is allotted to Crete. In 2020, Crete, as the biggest island, accounted for about 20% of the whole energy consumption among the many NIIs. When all previous energy vegetation are shut down, the financial savings from averted PSO funds will quantity to €100-150 million per 12 months. On the similar time, using wind and photo voltaic PV will be ramped up, offering clear and less expensive power to the island, and even mainland Greece.
Connecting islands to the grid is dear and won’t be economically viable within the case of islands with a a lot smaller inhabitants. Many of those remoted islands exist within the Aegean Sea and elsewhere. In these circumstances, different choices to combine renewable power are being explored and more and more applied. The usage of battery storage, specifically, is changing into increasingly more price environment friendly. This has led to the implementation of hybrid techniques consisting of photo voltaic PV and wind generators mixed with battery storage. These hybrid techniques, which have been applied on a number of distant islands, are in a position to substitute a big a part of the facility produced from diesel turbines.
Extending Ariadne’s string even additional
An interconnection between Greece, Cyprus and probably Israel has been mentioned for a few years, and political agreements have been signed by Greece and Cyprus. Nonetheless, the challenge has not superior to date. The profitable completion of the Ariadne interconnection might create new momentum to the challenge often known as the Mediterranean Interconnector.
Extending the connection to Cyprus would assist Cyprus to safe its power provide and to dramatically decrease its carbon footprint because the dependency on fossils fuels, all of which need to be imported, is even greater than on Crete.
The fashionable model of Ariadne’s string has helped to discover a approach to open up a inexperienced power future for Crete. It may be hoped that the concept of Ariadne’s legendary string is prolonged to an internet that helps join these islands nonetheless remoted as we speak.
The views and opinions on this article don’t essentially replicate these of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union.
