A decade of energy-system modelling for Greece: a systematic literature review

Abstract

As an EU Member State, Greece has adopted increasingly ambitious climate change mitigation targets and policies, particularly following the adoption of the Paris Agreement and EU-driven ambition, with the overarching goal of achieving a net-zero economy by 2050. This study presents a systematic literature review of energy-system modelling studies for Greece published in the period 2015–2025, investigating how research teams conceptualise the Greek energy sector of the future, the modelling frameworks employed, and the methodological trends that have emerged. Our review's findings indicate that more than half of the reviewed studies rely on ad hoc models developed for single applications, notably often lacking transparency, openness, and replicability traits, and that most models identified in the reviewed literature are based on cost minimisation approaches. The review also reveals that numerous applications fail to inform longer-term planning (i.e., to cover the critical decades ahead, towards decarbonisation), regional aspects, and/or key aspects of the ever-evolving Greek energy sector, such as variable renewable energy curtailment, hydrogen production and storage, or unit dispatch, although energy storage and electricity exchange have been gaining traction. Bridging these gaps in future modelling research can be facilitated by wider adoption of open-source and well-documented modelling frameworks as well as of open science and FAIR data principles. New studies can adopt models featuring increased spatial and temporal granularity, either by enhancing existing tools or by coupling different modelling frameworks to refrain from computationally demanding approaches while still capturing the increasing complexity of the energy transition in Greece.