At the 6th Renewable & Storage Forum, Stella Zacharia, CEO of Optimus Energy—the largest Aggregator in Greece—outlined the company’s strategy in today’s energy landscape marked by surplus generation, high volatility, and frequent negative prices.
In her remarks, she emphasized the critical importance of storage as well as the need to shift demand to hours of high Renewable Energy Source (RES) production, in order to mitigate curtailments and zero pricing.
“It is essential that demand is shifted to midday hours, when RES generation is at its peak, because storage has been delayed and is not growing at the same pace as new solar PV connections,” Ms. Zacharia stressed.
She highlighted some key figures:
- In March 2023, when the first major curtailments began in PV projects, there were 5.5 GW of installed capacity in the interconnected system.
- Today, capacity has reached 6.7 GW, meaning +1.2 GW has been added, gradually intensifying curtailments.
- By 2030, the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) projects 13.5 GW, an increase of +7 GW compared to March 2023.
According to Ms. Zacharia, these figures are significant and call for coordinated action on multiple fronts:
- Greater investment in storage.
- Enhanced flexibility in both production and consumption.
- Demand shifting to hours of abundant clean energy.
“All these measures must be implemented in a coordinated manner, in order to achieve the optimal and most cost-effective outcome,” she concluded.
