Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Environmental and Legal Analysis of the Hellenic Heating and Cooling Sector

Abstract

This work provides the policy and economic analysis of the renewable heating and cooling sector in Greece. The novelty of this study is that it unveils the different policy instruments and incentive structures in promoting renewable heating and cooling adoption, and it analyses the social, cultural and technical barriers to the adoption of renewable heating and cooling systems in Greece. To this end, a PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Environmental and Legal) analysis is performed, with a view to demonstrating the factors that affect Greece’s progress against the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP), the decarbonisation of the heating and cooling sector and finally, the alignment with the long-term energy strategy. Overall, the results of this analysis show that the heating and cooling sector is still greatly dependent on the use of fossil fuels. However, there are more opportunities than barriers for the deployment of the renewable heating and cooling sector in Greece; opportunities arise from the ambitious political goals that are harmonized with those of the EU, targeting climate-neutrality by 2050.