The National Bank of Greece has a portfolio of €3 billion of renewable energy financing, which corresponds to approximately 30% of the market, covering the whole range of traditional renewable energy projects, from energy communities and other small projects to large parks such as the 3 projects from which Amazon will buy energy.
It should be noted that half of the projects that National Bank is including in the TAA are RE projects, and of the €1 billion of EIB's deals under the Green Investments program in Greece, the bank has absorbed 80%.
It also proceeded with the first green bond issue by a Greek bank and now has about €1.2 billion through two issues, with the second one completed last November.
SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT INTEREST
As Vassilis Karamouzis, General Manager of Corporate and Investment Banking at NBG, told a meeting with journalists, the role of banks in the country's energy transition will remain very important, as renewable energy alone will require €15 - €20 billion of investment by 2030. Of these funds, around 50% will come from bank lending.
The bank identifies significant investment interest in the Greek energy sector from Greek and foreign investors, while the peak of interest remains in renewables, storage (batteries and pumped storage), grids and gas, even if new RES plants participate in the market without guaranteed prices and despite the brake on energy transition after Trump's election.
In this context, it was noted that the green transition is critical to be supported in the medium term by the use of cleaner fossil fuels such as natural gas. With this in mind, the financing of FSRU and a new Combined Cycle Gas-fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) Power Plant in Alexandroupolis was carried out.
INTERFACES
Special reference was paid to promoting domestic networks and cross-border interconnections, both in energy and data. Thus, the bank has already financed cross-border and domestic cable interconnections, such as the East Med Corridor, the 1st transaction in Greece in the form of Islamic Finance, coordinated and implemented by the National Bank of Greece. At the same time, as noted, it is considering financing all major interconnections, such as with Cyprus, Israel and Egypt.
STORAGE
In addition, it recently entered into the first financing agreement for the installation of a 50 megawatt battery in the country by a foreign group, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
PARTNERSHIPS
As noted, the National Bank provides solutions to meet all the financial needs of major groups in the sector, including but not limited to:
- PPC
- Metlen
- Motor Oil
- Helleniq Energy
- Copelouzos
- GEK Terna
- DEPA
- DESFA
- DEDEO
In addition, it is ready to support carbon capture & storage investments and provides the full range of financing products for the energy upgrade of buildings.
SOLUTIONS
Finally, a number of solutions and products were mentioned, such as:
- Hedging solutions related to interest rates, foreign exchange, commodities and energy costs. Already in 2020, it was the first bank to offer integrated energy cost management solutions in various categories such as EUAs (EUAs), natural gas (TTF) and electricity (SMP).
- The Energy Baseload Swap (EBS), which was activated in 2024 and enables companies to stabilize their energy costs (in the case of consumers) or revenue (in the case of RES producers) for up to 10 years, through a bilateral financial contract with the National Bank of Greece. Thus, large and small RES producers have a locked-in tariff without necessarily entering into a PPA with a large consumer
- The ability to enter into standard terms financial frameworks for existing and future RES transactions, having already proceeded with one of the largest agreements of this type pan-European for a Greek group of companies. The agreement acts as an umbrella, with common key terms on projects that meet pre-agreed criteria and can be at various stages of development, while the energy produced can be sold through Feed-in Premium/Feed-in Tariff contracts and/or Corporate PPAs
