We spoke with founder of Solar Energy Land, Thanos Christodoulou, about the potential impact renewable energy can have on our planet if we embrace it globally.
Hi Thanos, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I am a Physicist with Masters in Environmental Studies and Renewable Energy. I have been working in the solar energy sector for more than 14 years, in different roles, both commercial and technical. I have participated in teams where we developed projects of a total capacity of 2 GW and in 2020 I founded Solar Energy Land, a platform connecting landowners from various countries with international solar PV developers.
What is a fun fact about you?
When I want to clear my mind, I sit on my piano improvising for hours. Sometimes what I get as an idea, I transform it into an instrumental track!
Why do you think climate change and sustainability is such an important topic today?
The last decades, climate change effects have been so visible that we cannot neglect the actual problem anymore. I live in a country (Greece) whose climate has been one of the best climates of Europe (along with other Mediterranean countries) and the last decades we see phenomena that are getting more and more extreme. There is no time left for our planet, our only home, and one of the reasons I wanted to study and work on renewables is the fact that the endlessness of the resources such as the sun and the wind constitutes the greatest argument that we have to focus urgently on these resources and start reversing what could be the end of our home.
What do you envision your industry looking like 10 years from now?
I am definitely optimistic about renewables and how they are going to offer to most of the countries, what was considered almost a dream some decades before: energy independency and an almost zero-impact, inexhaustible energy supply system that will save millions of lives in the years to come. I would like to see, and I believe that it will happen sooner or later, a much bigger network of distributed systems, such as solar panels at residential buildings. You know, Greece is number one country in solar thermal systems for residents, so I would definitely like to see the same score in solar PV systems in the years to come.
What can the average person do to make a difference?
First of all, install solar thermal and solar PV systems to their homes. Along with recycling, and electrical cars/bikes, I consider renewable energy for residential use one of the major factors that could really make a difference in the near future, provided of course that there are significant incentives by governments, so that more and more people can embrace these technologies and contribute to a cleaner and sustainable future.