Italy

The Italian developer has announced most of its 37-strong Italian workforce will be laid off without spelling out why.

Italian steelmaker Acciaierie Venete will buy solar power procured by Swiss energy trader DXT Commodities from a third-party unsubsidized PV plant in Italy under a five-year power purchase agreement.

The transaction has been approved by AGCM, Italy’s antitrust authority. Prior to acquiring Evolvere – which recorded a turnover of more than €30 million in 2018 – Eni has mainly specialized in the construction of large-scale solar plants, rather than residential and commercial PV projects.

The government has abrogated a controversial measure introduced last year which favored big developers in the allocation of fiscal incentives for rooftop projects linked to building renovation.

IHS Markit has predicted another year of global solar growth but a peek behind the headline figures shows uncertainty dogging the markets of China and India, two of the most important markets and biggest polluters.

The Italian manufacturer said the product is based on a technical solution previously used for power downgrading. The device is said to be ideal for projects at altitudes greater than 1,000m.

Storage has long been expected to be the handmaiden of a renewable energy world and its long awaited advances started to finally emerge in the third quarter as researchers posited R&D achievements ranging from potentially potent tungsten disulfide nanotubes to the business case for 10-year solar panels.

The first part of pv magazine’s review of 2019 considers Q1, when solar early adopter Italy offered an optimistic start to the year by fleshing out its plans for PV but uncertainty still clouded the world’s biggest solar market. The potential for household solar installations to rocket the world over – helped by ever cheaper panels – prompted strategic decisions in the inverter market and analyst expectations were confounded as the cobalt and lithium price plummeted, bringing the EV revolution a big step nearer.

With the move, the Italian infrastructure fund has raised its operational renewable energy portfolio to 1 GW and secured access to the Spanish market for its EF Solare unit.

The Italia Solare Forum event held in Rome laid bare the difficulty of securing permits for large scale projects at national and regional levels. Fast-tracking the process for big solar parks appears necessary to get Italian PV back on track.