Cero Generation, a solar portfolio company of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG), has closed financing on its first corporate power purchase agreement (PPA)-enabled agrivoltaic project in Italy.
The 70MW agriPV project will be located in the Lazio region with construction set to start in May 2022, and is expected to be operational from the first quarter of 2023.
The utility-scale project will allow the use of 65% of the 135 hectares of land use for agricultural crops, and is amongst the first large-scale agriPV plants in Italy, according to Cero Generation.
The Pontinia project has secured two long-term PPAs with undisclosed companies.
With the financing of its 70MW agriPV in Italy, Cero Generation continues its investments in that market after partnering with EDF Renewables last year to acquire French agriPV developer Green Lighthouse Development, who had at the time a solar portfolio of 2.4GW.
Launched one year ago by Australian giant Macquarie’s GIG as an independent portfolio, Cero Generation has 9GW of solar PV under development across more than 150 projects, with over 1.5GW of solar PV in Italy alone.
There has been a growing activity in the agriPV space in the recent months, with Germany set to accelerate solar deployment on agricultural land, solar manufacturer Heliene and US nanomaterials specialist UbiQD collaborating on agriPV modules and Statkraft partnering with the University of Bari to explore the potential of agrivoltaics, to name but a few.