Water, Sustainability and Digital Transformation

The President of EYATH, Agis M. Papadopoulos, spoke about the green transition, water scarcity and human resource needs at the “energy panel” of the “GreenDealGreece 2024” conference. The conference is organized by the Technical Chamber of Greece in collaboration with economix.gr, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, on: “Resilience at the heart of sustainable development and green and digital transformation”.

The President of EYATH spoke about the steps that need to be taken to modernize infrastructure in times of climate crisis. “The climate crisis does not only highlight existing shortcomings. Our infrastructures have been designed based on assumptions and data that are no longer valid. There is no infrastructure anywhere in Europe that can withstand what happened in Thessaly or Valencia,” he pointed out.

Regarding the issue of water scarcity, he stressed that it has to do with the operation of the networks – which are very old in many cases – but also with the digital transformation, which will be the vehicle for optimizing the operation of the networks and reducing water losses as much as possible in the future. According to Mr. Papadopoulos, however, “perhaps the most important problem is human resources itself.” “From large manufacturers to small public contractors, everyone is looking for staff, which has a direct impact on the implementation of projects. We are lagging  because there are no people to work,” he noted.

Finally, Mr. Papadopoulos also referred to the cost of the green transition: “We will need a lot of money in the coming decades for the green transition, but in the end, we would need it anyway. The additional cost for RES, after all, is actually much smaller than what is presented to the public.”