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Greece says its entire electrical grid ran on 100% renewables for the first time

NPR · Bill Chappell · last updated

The Greek electrical system has hit a new milestone, after running completely on “clean” renewable energy for the first time. Renewable energy sources covered Greece’s electricity demands for about five hours last Friday, the Independent Power Transmission Operator, or IPTO, said.

Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables

State of Play

Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.

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