Greece’s coal power fell to a record low in 2024, as renewables filled nearly half of the country’s electricity needs that year, according to data from Eurostat.
Lignite, the only form of coal used in Greek power plants, generated 281,000 tonnes of oil equivalent in 2024, a drop of 85 percent from 2015. That marks a sharp decline from a decade ago, when coal made up more than 42 percent of the country’s electricity supply. By 2024, its share had slipped to just 5.6 percent, down nearly 30 percent from 2023 alone.
Renewables overtake Greece’s shrinking coal power output
The retreat of Greece’s coal power came even as renewables and total electricity output both climbed to their highest levels since 2015, with production reaching close to 5 million tonnes of oil equivalent. Wind, solar and hydropower together accounted for nearly 48 percent of that total, edging out natural gas, which supplied about 37 percent.
Greece’s decline mirrors a broader pattern across the European Union, where coal has steadily lost ground for decades. In 1990, coal supplied more than a third of the bloc’s electricity. By 2024, the EU’s overall coal share had dropped below 10 percent for the first time, and it slipped further in 2025.
Nuclear power, natural gas and renewable sources have each overtaken coal at different points since the 1990s, with solar power moving ahead of it in 2024.
How Greece’s coal retreat compares across the EU
Some EU nations still lean heavily on coal. In the Eurostat figures, lignite made up 34 percent of electricity output in Czechia in 2024, followed by Bulgaria and Poland, both above 21 percent, and Germany, at just above 15 percent.
Greece’s own lignite share, by comparison, now sits close to the EU average of 5.8 percent, a striking shift for a country that once relied heavily on domestic coal reserves.
A handful of EU countries have gone further, cutting coal out of power generation entirely. Portugal ended the use of hard coal for electricity in 2021, and Slovakia stopped producing brown coal in 2024, leaving only eight EU countries still mining the fuel.
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