Last year the Greek and German governments proposed a solar PV
project to be built in Greece that would generate up to 10,000
megawatts of electricity that could then be sold to other
European countries. The only thing they forgot is that it’s
really difficult to get electricity across Europe’s national
borders. The latest plan is to build the plant anyway and sell
the power in Europe without actually sending the electricity out
of Greece. While that may seem like a scam of some kind, what
the purchasers gain are clean energy credits that can be counted
toward the continent’s carbon emissions limits. It’s a novel
idea, and it may actually work. Greece has plenty of sunshine,
which is as cheap as a fuel gets — i.e., free — and carbon-free
as well. In other countries, it may be expensive to harness some
form of green energy. The continent has agreed to generate 20%
of its energy from green sources by 2020, and these cross-border
“co-operation agreements” were included to help make that
possible. Such a program