Italy’s solar capacity increased by about 25.7 MW in January, according to provisional numbers released by local renewable energy association Anie Rinnovabili.
Compared to January 2016, last month’s performances represents a 7% increase. The new capacity comes mostly in the form of residential PV systems up to 20 kW, the association said. January’s growth is substantially in line with the market trend, a monthly increase of about 30 MW, registered over the past two years.
The Italian regions with the largest growth in terms of new MWs were Basilicata, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Lombardia, Veneto, Valle d’Aosta e Toscana.
The Italian grid operator Terna has also reported that PV was able to cover approximately 3.8% of the country’s electricity demand with 1,082 GWh in January 2017. Power generation from solar source was up 7% from January 2016 and up by 117 GWh from December 2016.
Italy had a cumulative installed PV capacity of around 19.2 GW at the end of 2016.
Meanwhile, the government-owned energy agency GSE has published new rules for the technological improvement of existing PV installations.
The rules are intended to simplify the technical and bureaucratic procedures for the revamping and repowering of PV power systems installed under the country’s FIT scheme Conto Energia, which was closed in mid-2013.
This market segment offers good opportunities for operators of existing systems, taking into account that under the five incentive programs Conto Energia Italy has installed over 17 GW of solar power.
Anie Rinnovabili said that the new rules will provide new business opportunities for solar module and inverter manufacturers, as well as for PV plant operators. Solar project developers will also take advantage of the new rules because they will be involved in implementing the upgrades, the association added.
The revamping procedure is intended to restore original performance to an existing PV installation, while the repowering procedure, which includes the substitution of modules and inverters, is aimed at increasing capacity and production.
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.
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.