Greece Tasks U.S. Firm to Oversee $26 Billion Solar Project

ATHENS – Depending on an ambitious $26 billion plan called the Helios Project to harness the power of the sun that shines on Greece as much as 300 days a year, the Greek government has appointed the New York-Chicago firm of Guggenheim Partners to act as a financial advisor to help boost income from renewable energy during a long-lasting economic crisis. Guggenheim Partners will work alongside National Bank of Greece on the financing, structuring and staged deployment of the Helios solar project, the American financial services company said today in a statement sent by e-mail.  Named after the ancient god of the sun, Helios is a project that aims to produce and export as much as 10 gigawatts of solar power by 2020. Greece aims to use the project’s revenues to reduce government debt by as much as 15 billion euros ($19.8 billion.)
Helios will start with an initial target capacity of 2 gigawatts. As the grid develops, more partners will be brought in to develop the project, according to the statement. “Helios is more than an innovative energy solution,” Todd Boehly, President of Guggenheim Partners said. Under the plan, electricity generated in Greece would be exported to northern Europe – boosting the European solar sector and potentially creating thousands of jobs in the beleaguered Mediterranean state.
The project is important to help the European Union meet objectives for a low carbon economy, according to Giovanni De Santi, Director of the EU’s Institute for Energy and Transport.  “Large, innovative projects such as Helios, with a clear EU dimension, are important for our Union objectives for a low carbon economy, and thus meeting our 2020 renewable energy targets in Europe,” De Santi said previously. “Helios, by stimulating innovation, will deliver on the growth and jobs goals that the EU pursues,” said De Santi, who heads the Institute for Energy and Transport of the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s scientific and technical research center.
Dr. Stefanos Melissopoulos, Corporate Vice President and President-Greece at Conergy, said that although the proposed project is ambitious, the plan is feasible, but he is concerned about the lack of an adequate infrastructure and energy grid. He said previously that  project financing was a major problem in Greece.  However, because Helios is a long-term scheme, he predicts that potential investors may be “more flexible.”
(Sources: Kathimerini, Solar Novus,  Bloomberg, PV Magazine, )