The European Commission (EC) awarded on December 18 over € 1.2 billion to 23 highly innovative, renewable energy demonstration projects, including to two Greek projects of solar thermal technology on the island of Crete, and in Florina, north-western Greece.

The two projects will receive a total funding of € 86.5 million, or about 7% of their total cost, announced the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, adding that the funding programme "is a great success for Greece."

The project in Crete -officially known as MINOS- will produce enough energy to supply 25,000 homes on the island, being one of the most technically advanced and efficient solar projects in Europe. The project in Florina -called MAXIMUS- is a large-scale Stirling dish power plant with a total installed capacity of 75.3 MWe, expected to be the first and largest of its type globally using the DishStirling technology.

The award decision was published, following the first call for proposals in the context of the NER300 funding programme, a financing instrument managed jointly by the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and member states.