This is a 9.8% increase from PV electricity production in 2013, when photovoltaic systems had generated 21.229 GWh of electricity or about 6.6% of the country's electricity demand in 2013.
Overall, 2014 was an excellent year for Italy's renewable energy sector in terms of electricity output with all various kind of renewable systems of energy reporting an output increase. Of these, photovoltaic technology scored the highest year on year output increase and is only second to hydro systems that produced 58.067 GWh.
On the contrary, Italy's thermoelectric sector provided only 165.684 GWh of the country's electricity demand in 2014, a 9.7 percent decrease compared to 2013. Overall, electricity demand was also down in 2014, being reduced specifically by 3 percent compared to 2013.
In terms of monthly output, August was the best year for the PV sector which generated 2.832 GWh of electricity compared to January's 780 GWh, the lowest PV generated of all months last year.
New cuts?
2014 was a critical year for the Italian PV investors who saw their income reduced when the government imposed retroactive feed-in tariff cuts for existing PV installations.
Recently too, there were reports that Italys government has mooted a series of new charges for PV systems in 2015. The supposed new fees were to cover costs incurred by Italy's energy agency GSE for the running of the countrys Conto Energia renewables remuneration scheme and the net-metering program.
However, a spokesperson of Italys renewable energy organization ANIE Rinnovabili told pv magazine that GSE's fees is something already in place since a couple of years ago. There is nothing left to cut [of the Italian PV sector], the same source added.
GSE has reported that there is a total 18.2 GW of PV currently installed under the Conto Energia schemed oppressed 531.242 among installations. Italy continues to add new photovoltaic systems, however these now come through its net-metering program which in 2014 expanded to cover systems up to 500 kW.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.