Chalki Climate protection has many facets. On the Greek island of Chalki it comes in the form of a box-shaped two-seater vehicle. “Police” is written on the vehicle with a small blue light on the black plastic roof. The uniformed officer looks a bit skeptical at first when he is supposed to sit for a try. But it works. Then it turns out that there is even space for the 1.94 meter tall Kyriakos Mitsotakis behind the steering wheel of this miniature car.
The Greek prime minister came to Halki this weekend to usher in a new energy age. On the small Dodecanese island, which is 50 minutes by ferry from the tourist hotspot Rhodes in the southern Aegean, the Greek government wants to demonstrate in a pilot project what a holistic, sustainable energy concept can look like.
The 27 square kilometer Chalki will be the first “GR-eco island”. This is the name of the plan, which in addition to sustainable energy supply also includes fast internet.
In cooperation with the Greek Ministry of Energy and Environment, several private sponsors are involved in the implementation with donations of around 1.5 million euros, including the car manufacturer Citroen, Vinci Energies and the Greek energy supplier DEI.
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“This initiative starts here, and in a second phase we will transfer it to other islands, first to smaller ones, then to larger ones and ultimately to all of them,” Mitsotakis announced when he got out of the bizarre patrol car.
Not suitable for chases
The Citroen Ami vehicle, which at first glance doesn’t show where the front and rear is because of the symmetrical, trapezoidal sideline, is powered by a six-kilowatt electric motor. The electricity comes from a 5.5 kilowatt hour battery.
At a top speed of 30 km / h, the police car is not suitable for car chases, but according to a local police officer, there has never been one in Halki anyway.
The manufacturer specifies the range at 47 kilometers. The car manufacturer Citroen donated a second Ami to the port police of Chalki. The French leasing company ALD Automotive is making four more, larger Citroen vehicles available to the municipal administration.
Other elements of the pilot project are intelligent, energy-saving street lighting for Chalki and an electrically powered excursion boat. The island wants to distinguish itself as a role model for energetically sustainable tourism development and as a preferred destination for climate-conscious vacationers.
The heart of the project is in the mountains in the north of the island’s capital. The French groups Akuo Energy and Vinci have built a photovoltaic system on a plateau here. The solar power plant, which is designed for a megawatt output, will in future supply households and businesses on the island with electricity. Excess electricity can be fed into the network of the neighboring island of Rhodes via an undersea cable. If the sun doesn’t shine, Chalki gets electricity from there.
The photovoltaic system belongs to the “Energy Community” of Chalki, which all islanders can join. Experts from the Ministry of Energy calculate that the island can save up to 250,000 euros in electricity costs per year. The monthly electricity bill of households should be around 60 percent cheaper, said Premier Mitsotakis at the opening event.
The pilot project aims to bring a better quality of life to the 300 permanent residents of Chalki.
(Photo: Dimitris Papamitsos)
Above all, this view inspires many of the islanders, who gathered in large numbers at the port on Friday evening to watch the presentation. “I’m already 72”, says Charalambos, who earns his living with a fishing boat, “but open to everything new”. He especially likes how silently the electric boat glided through the harbor during the demonstration. “I would also like to have a drive like this,” says the fisherman.
The sponsors also include the mobile communications company Vodafone. It donated a 5G cellular network to the island and equipped the small school in Chalki with laptops, tablets and a 3D printer. The patients in the small health center, which is now connected in real time to a large clinic in Athens, can also benefit from 5G technology. Telemedicine enables many diagnoses for which you previously had to go to a clinic on the neighboring island of Rhodes.
Like many small Greek islands, Halki is aging. Many young people are drawn to Rhodes or Athens because they see better educational and career opportunities there. But now something like a spirit of optimism can be felt on the island. As a “GR-eco island”, Chalki is moving towards a “better, more secure future”, says Angelos Frangakis.
The 47-year-old grew up the son of a fisherman in Chalki, later went to the police in Athens, then returned to his home island and was elected mayor in 2019. The pilot project gives the 300 permanent residents of Chalki “a new, inestimable quality of life,” says the local politician.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis also sees the fast 5G network as an incentive for digital nomads: “If we offer the right conditions and the right infrastructure, why should someone not only spend the summer but also the winter on such a beautiful island as Chalki”, says the head of government.
Islands are to become “self-sufficient travel destinations”
Experts from the Ministry of Energy calculate that the new energy concept should reduce the island’s CO2 emissions by 1,800 tons a year. That may sound modest, but it shouldn’t stay that way: “Chalki is just the beginning,” explains Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis had already advertised the pilot project at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow last Monday. “We want to gradually transform our islands into 100 percent ‘green’, energetically sustainable and self-sufficient travel destinations,” announced the premier. Greece plans to shut down the last coal-fired power plant in seven years at the latest. Offshore wind farms with a total output of 2 gigawatts are to be connected to the grid by 2030.
The day before his trip to Chalki, Mitsotakis had explained Greece’s first climate protection law in the cabinet. Among other things, it provides for the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines to be banned in Greece from 2030. As early as 2025, new taxis in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki will have to have hybrid or all-electric drives.
From 2023, the installation of new oil heating systems in areas connected to the natural gas network will be banned. The approval procedures for renewable energy projects will be simplified and accelerated with the new law.
By 2030, Greece wants to increase the share of renewables in the overall energy mix to 35 percent and in electricity consumption to 67 percent. Most recently, the value was around 30 percent. In order to achieve its climate goals, according to calculations by the Athens Ministry of Energy, Greece will have to add an average of 850 MW from renewable sources annually by 2030.
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