Solarplaza Summit Greece

Monday 14 November 2022

19:00

Pre-Conference Networking Event

The Networking Dinner will take place in KUZINA Restaurant Athens

The Networking Event will take place in KUZINA Restaurant Athens

Tuesday 15 November 2022

Program

09:30

Opening words by Solarplaza & Conference Host

presentation

10 min.

Michael Buchsbaum

Energytransition.org

Celina Gundlach

Solarplaza

Session Topics:

Session I

The trends & opportunities shaping the Greek PV market

09:40

Why now is the time to transition towards a green (energy) economy

presentation

20 min.

Alexandra Sdoukou

Ministry for the Environment and Energy

Alexandra Sdoukou

Secretary General

Ministry for the Environment and Energy

Alexandra Sdoukou is a lawyer, permanent employee at the Management Organisation Unit of Development Programmes (MOU S.A.) under the Ministry of Economy and Development. Since 2004, she has been working as legal advisor in the public administration in various positions at the Ministries of Economy, Development and Environment, Energy & Climate Change. She has been specialised as energy policymaker, working with all Energy Ministers from 2007 to 2015. From 2012 to 2015, she was Head of Cabinet at the Minister of Environment, Energy & Climate Change, competent to develop policy formulation, implementation and monitoring on a wide range of energy and environmental projects. From October 2017, she was Advisor to the President of Nea Dimokratia on energy and natural resources. Alexandra holds a Bachelor of Law degree from Democritus University of Thrace, a Master’s Degree LLM in European Commercial Law from the University of Bristol U.K., and a M.Sc. in International & Economic studies from the Athens University of Economics & Business.

Session Topics:

• What's needed to reach urgent global climate goals?
• Key takeaways from the revised ''National Energy and Climate Plan: Roadmap to 2030''
• Global developments impacting the Greek energy market
• Greece's potential position as a (grid) connector for connecting Africa and Europe

10:00

Trends and new regulatory frameworks shaping the Greek solar market outlook

presentation

30 min.

Stelios Psomas

HELAPCO - Hellenic Association of PV Companies

Session Topics:

How does the Greek solar market compare to global progress and expectations?
A breakdown of what the new regulatory framework for renewable, hybrid and storage licensing entails
The opportunities and challenges related to reducing licensing time from 5 years to 14 months
Will the new framework increase the availability grid space for renewables and allow for net metering?
Supporting renewables with new 2.27 billion RES tendering scheme/new bidding system
Will Greece become a European energy storage hub?
Dissecting the volatile dynamics of electricity prices

10:30

Project Developer Roundtable: Identifying key market opportunities

panel

40 min.

moderator

Dr Sotiris Kapellos

ELPE Renewables

Dr Sotiris Kapellos

Chief Operating Officer, BoD member

ELPE Renewables

Dr S.Kapellos is a graduate of the Chemical Department of the University of Athens. He received a PhD on the field of Physical Chemistry from the same Institution. Between 1993 and 2007, he had the opportunity to fill various managerial posts within the BP Hellas Organization: Quality, Health, Safety and Environment, Human Resources, Customer Services, Pricing and Credit, Retail Fuels District Manager Northern Greece. In 2007, he is appointed as the CEO of BP Solar Hellas, to setup the new business. Since 2010, he works for ELPE Renewables (100% owned by HELPE Group). He currently holds the position of the Chief Operating Officer of the company, being a BoD member of the company. Τhe current RES portfolio of ELPE Renewables is comprised of more than 2000 MW of PV, Wind and Storage Projects, of which 37 MW PV and 44 MW Wind in operation. In February 2020, the acquisition of a 204 MW PV project in Kozani is signed that has been constructed and connected to the Grid in April 2022. This is the largest in operation RES project in Greece and one of the largest PV projects in Europe. Dr.S.Kapellos, currently the Chief Operating Officer of ELPE Renewables, has been, on behalf of HELPE, the Lead Negotiator and then the Project Manager and the Managing Director of the Kozani 204 MW PV Project companies. Dr.S.Kapellos has published several scientific articles in international magazines during his academic career and several articles on subjects related to RES, Solar Technology and Energy Policy for newspapers, relevant magazines and e-media. Since 2008, he is being an elected member of the board of the Hellenic Association of PV companies (HELAPCO) and since April 2013 Chairman of the board of the Association. Since April 2021 he has been elected as President of the Energy Committee of the Hellenic-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Ypatios Moysiadis

Wattcrop

Ypatios Moysiadis

Managing Partner

Wattcrop

Ypatios Moysiadis’ early years spent growing up in an industrial coal mining town in Northwest Greece had a profound effect on his career and helped embed a focus on sustainability in all his future ventures. He started working in renewables 15 years ago, capitalising on the legislative introduction of renewable energy incentives. Over the years he expanded his scope into the development, construction and operation of renewable energy assets. This work lead to posts at major British and international organisations like Galliford Try Group, Grupotec, Foresight Group, BayWa r.e. and Voltalia Group, working in several spot markets and countries. Ypatios has worked across the value chain on all major renewable technologies, with emphasis on Solar PV. Today, Ypatios is the Managing Partner of Wattcrop focusing on development of new generation projects internationally and advancement of innovation within the services sector of Renewable Energy. He is a visiting lecturer at Cass Business School London and ESCP Business School Paris, and promotes Renewables as an author and active blogger.

Vassilis Zorbas

Entricity

Vassilis Zorbas

Managing Director

Entricity

Vassilis Zorbas was born in Athens in 1974; he studied Mechanical Engineering in the National Technical University of Athens and holds an MBA from Cardiff Business School. Vassilis started his career holding various managerial positions in Unisys and Procter & Gamble Greece. Since 2006 he has been working in the Renewable Energy sector in Project Development, EPC execution and General Management positions. After leading the Solar Engineering teams of strong international groups such as Wuerth Solar, Skysolar and Sunrise, he moved to Phoenix Solar where he served for 3 years as a General Manager for Greece and Commercial Director for Europe. In 2019 he founded Entricity, a firm specialized in Business Development, Design and Construction of Renewable Energy, Battery Storage and Hydrogen projects. Scope of Entricity is to expand its RES operations to selected European countries and enhance its business platform by getting actively involved in E-mobility. Entricity has currently under development in Greece a substantial pipeline of Solar and Battery Storage projects with an overall capacity of more than 6,5GW.

Philipp Kunze

BayWa r.e.

Session Topics:

• Energy storage: the opportunities arising from the 3GW storage target for 2030
• C&I/rooftops: the potential of new netmetering policies in boosting C&I and small scale solar PV
• The growth potential in the Secondary Market
• From market opportunity to profitable business case

11:10

Morning Networking Break

Session Topics:

Session II

Solutions to the challenges that hold back PV market acceleration

11:50

Investor Roundtable: Overcoming the hurdles in Greece’s investment climate

panel

40 min.

moderator

Virginia Murray

Watson Farley & Williams

Gianluca Boccanera

NextEnergy Capital

Anastasia Sampani

Enel Green Power

Costas Caralis

Hive Energy

Stamatis Vournelis

Aquila Clean Energy

Session Topics:

• Effectively managing land acquisition, project licensing and site leasing
• Dealing with the crucial factor of local stakeholder acceptance
• Capitalizing on new applications of solar: learnings from abroad

12:30

Solving grid congestion: Initiatives from network operators and the market itself

panel

30 min.

moderator

Ypatios Moysiadis

Wattcrop

Ypatios Moysiadis

Managing Partner

Wattcrop

Katherine Poseidon

Voltalia

Christos Georgopoulos

Power Factors

Christos Georgopoulos

Chief Grid & Market Integration Officer

Power Factors

He co-founded Inaccess in 2000 as a smart controls company and was its CEO until the company's acquisition by Power Factors, in June 2022. At Power Factors he is responsible for Controls, Grid and Market Integration activities of the company. At Inaccess he developed the business strategy and product direction, managed business development, and pursued strategic cooperations with technology vendors and key customers. His main interests include Renewable energy (primarily PV) and related technologies (Batteries, Microgrids, dispatchable loads), Grid compliance and Market Integration. He is a member of various international associations and a frequent speaker in sector-specific conferences and thematic events on the topic of smart energy, renewables systems and optimal grid integration. Before starting Inaccess, from 1998 to 2000, Mr. Georgopoulos carried out R&D work for Lucent's Bell Labs on automation and controls and automation for smart homes and enterprises; from 1993 to 1998 he was an R&D associate with NTUA, Greece, working in research projects with several EU telecommunications companies on the topic of integrated broadband networks. He holds a diploma in Electrical & Computer Engineering and a Ph.D. in Integrated Broadband Networks, both from NTUA, Greece.

Yannis Kampouris

ADMIE / IPTO

Session Topics:

• An overview of the most recent grid developments and challenges
• The potential impact of the longest undersea cable on Greek grid capacity
• How feasible are the current plans and innovations that aim to solve the congestion?
• The supportive roles that smart grid solutions like demand response management and priorities for grid connections can play in creating flexibility
• Debating privatization of the grid, a solution or not?

13:00

Networking Lunch

Session Topics:

Session III

Impactful financial & technical developments that are changing the game

14:30

The evolving Greek PPA market and emergence of green PPAs

presentation

20 min.

Evangelos Gazis

Aurora Energy Research

Session Topics:

Inventory of the current and expected (inter)national market developments
Outlook of the Greek capacity mix and power prices
Analyzing PPA supply and demand dynamics
The impact of volatile electricity prices on the Greek PPA market
Latest insights into corporate PPAs, long-term PPAs and green PPAs
Examples of PPA structures and price benchmarks

14:50

Fireside chat: How RES developers can support companies in reaching Sustainable Development Goals

panel

20 min.

moderator

Dario Gallanti

Our New Energy

Costas Baslis

HERON

Stella Zacharia

Optimus Energy

Vicky Gkrimpa

Linde Hellas

Session Topics:

Energy producer and corporate offtaker talk PPAs: Key Success Factors for cooperation and contracts
The role RES developers can play in achieving corporates' Sustainable Development Goals while reducing energy supply costs

15:10

Utility-scale solar PV: Moving from big to biggest

panel

20 min.

moderator

Michael Buchsbaum

Energytransition.org

Dimitris Varlamis

Jinko Solar

Takis Sarris

JUWI

Dimitris Varveris

Eurocom

Session Topics:

Insights derived from developing Europe's largest bifacial solar power plant at Kozani
The value of an efficient customs and logistics approach in realizing large scale solar parks
How to meet the changing investors' needs on time and at the lowest possible risks?
The importance of technical innovation in Solar PV

15:30

Afternoon Networking Break

Session Topics:

Session IV

Looking ahead: visions on the Greek solar future

16:15

Making RES Technology Smarter to Accelerate Carbon Neutrality

presentation

15 min.

Theodor Tsiolis

Huawei

Session Topics:

Technological Innovation driving:
- Optimal LCOE
- Active Safety
- Grid Supporting
Transition from PV parity to PV + ESS parity

16:30

Correlating PV-technology with bankability

presentation

15 min.

Vitor Rodrigues

LONGi

Session Topics:

Where are we now: the state of PV-technology
Technology roadmap for the coming years, what to expect in terms of efficiency and future yields
Drivers to technological innovation
How to ensure the product and project’s bankability?

16:45

What does the future of PV hold for Greece?

panel

30 min.

moderator

Michael Buchsbaum

Energytransition.org

Yannis Vougiouklakis

PwC

Yannis Vougiouklakis

Director, Strategy

PwC

Yannis is a Director of the PwC Strategy Team in Greece. As a Senior expert on energy policy issues for the last 17 years, he had a continuous participation in National and European technical and regulatory committees in the field of Renewables Sources, Energy Efficiency and Energy Planning for more than a decade and he has been the key author of several technical reports, policy studies, regulatory and legislative texts, as well as national policy plans in the energy field. He has been also BoD member of the Helleninc Energy Exchange for 3yrs and until joining PwC. Yannis has continuously been Member of the National Committee for the Energy and Climate Plan from its formulation in 2018 until the present day. Before joining PwC, he has been a Senior Expert of GIZ GmbH for the Technical Assistance in the fields of Renewables and Energy Efficiency provided to the Greek Ministry for Environment and Energy from 2013 until beginning of 2022, and previously employed at the National Centre for Renewable Sources and Energy Saving for almost 9 years. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and worked in the JRC-Institute for Energy of the European Commission in the Netherlands as a PhD fellow and Research Agent.

Dr Sotiris Kapellos

ELPE Renewables

Dr Sotiris Kapellos

Chief Operating Officer, BoD member

ELPE Renewables

Nasos Plainos

LONGi

Session Topics:

Life after subsidies/tender schemes - future revenue models
Merchant development and price volatility

17:15

Closing Networking Drinks

Session Topics:

Solarplaza Summit | Greece

Opening words by Solarplaza & Conference Host

The trends & opportunities shaping the Greek PV market

Why now is the time to transition towards a green (energy) economy

Trends and new regulatory frameworks shaping the Greek solar market outlook

Project Developer Roundtable: Identifying key market opportunities

Solutions to the challenges that hold back PV market acceleration

Investor Roundtable: Overcoming the hurdles in Greece’s investment climate

Solving grid congestion: Initiatives from network operators and the market itself

Impactful financial & technical developments that are changing the game

The evolving Greek PPA market and emergence of green PPAs

Fireside chat: How RES developers can support companies in reaching Sustainable Development Goals

Utility-scale solar PV: Moving from big to biggest

Looking ahead: visions on the Greek solar future

Making RES Technology Smarter to Accelerate Carbon Neutrality

Correlating PV-technology with bankability

What does the future of PV hold for Greece?