An investment plan of 5.8 billion euros in Western Macedonia (up to 12 billion under certain conditions), which will create 20,000 direct jobs during the construction of the projects and 2,000 during their operation, was announced by the president and CEO of PPC, George Stassis, at an event held at the former Kardia lignite power station in the presence of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
PPC’s plan to transform Western Macedonia into a technological and green energy hub for the country and southeastern Europe includes investments in renewable sources, energy storage (batteries and pumped storage), hydrogen, capacitors, waste utilization, energy production from natural gas, district heating, land restoration and, most importantly, the installation of a data center that will be one of the largest in Europe.
During his speech, Stassis made special reference to the initiatives for the participation of residents in the RES projects being developed in the region by PPC Renewables, with a percentage of 5% through the issuance of a 5 million euro bond with a fixed yield of 8% that will be made available in the third quarter of 2025 exclusively to residents of the areas affected by delignification.
Conversion of the Ptolemais 5 lignite unit into a natural gas unit
Specifically, the Ptolemais 5 unit will stop burning lignite at the end of 2026 and will be converted into a 350 MW open-cycle natural gas unit by the end of 2027, with the possibility of upgrading to a 500 MW combined cycle unit initially and 1000 megawatts at the final stage.
As announced, 300 jobs will be created during the conversion of the unit to natural gas.
In addition, the investments include the following:
Conversion of the old generators of Units 3 and 4 of the Kardia Power Plant into capacitors for balancing the extra-high voltage system, costing 30 million euros.
Removal of buildings, installations and machinery, costing 130 million euros. As Stassis pointed out, almost 95% of the materials will be recycled.
Land restoration with an investment of 270 million euros: of the 200,000 acres that PPC had in the area, 80,000 are gradually being returned to the State. The rest will be used for the installation of new investments.
Construction of photovoltaics, with a total capacity of 2130 megawatts and an investment cost of 1.2 billion euros.
Energy storage units of over 860 megawatts with investments of 940 million euros that will create over 1,300 jobs during construction and hundreds during operation. These include two pumped storage units in Kardia (320 megawatts, 430 million euros and 600 jobs) and the southern field (240 megawatts, 310 million euros, 550 jobs) as well as 300 megawatt batteries in Amyntaio, Meliti, Akrini and Kardia.
