Italy’s energy management agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE) has awarded 1.5GW of agrivoltaics (agriPV) in the country’s first such tender.
In total, 540 projects were awarded capacity in a tender that ended up oversubscribed with more than 1.7GW capacity tendered and 643 bids.
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The tender was financed through Italy’s national recovery and resilience plan (PNRR), which was unveiled earlier this year with funding of €1.7 billion (US$1.78 billion). The funding aimed to fund over 1GW of capacity, for which the tender allocated more than that.
Awarded projects are expected to begin commercial operations by the end of June 2026.
The results of the tender come more than six months after Italy banned ground-mounted solar PV installations on agricultural land. At the time, Italia Solare, the national trade body for the solar industry, called the decision “a serious mistake” and said that it would cost Italy approximately €60 billion in lost private investment and tax revenues. However, the ban did not apply to the agriPV tender due to its funding coming through the PNRR.
The tender awarded 270 projects with less than 1MW of capacity (under ‘Registri’), which came in at an average price of €88.92/MWh and accounted for a combined 178MW of capacity. Projects larger than 1MW (under ‘Aste’) combined for nearly 1.4GW of capacity in total, with projects averaging 5MW in size and a price of €79.86/MWh.
As shown in the graph below, Sicily in the south is the region with the most capacity awarded, with 336MW across 33 projects. In general, the south of Italy had the most capacity awarded in the >1MW category, with Apulia awarded 42 projects totalling 212MW. Calabria had the most number of projects awarded overall, with 48 totalling 149MW of capacity.
Only 19 of the projects will have some of the capacity used for self-consumption. However, in the category of projects under 1MW, the number doubles to 38, with some of the projects using all the capacity for self-consumption.
GreenGo was among the developers awarded capacity, with a combined 23MW across three projects located in Sicily and Calabria. The company expects to have the projects operational by 2025, ahead of the end of June 2026 deadline set by the tender.
Patrizio Donati, co-founder and managing director at independent power producer Terrawatt told PV Tech that most of the projects admitted involve “large institutional players over extremely large capacity for Italy, with some of the largest going up to 270MW for European Energy”.
Donati explained that spare capacity was left in the agriPV tender, “meaning fewer projects than expected were presented”.
“It could be an interesting signal about the market’s appetite for such projects, whereby only really large players with the capital to risk on such developments are willing to get into this technology, and the rest prefer to go down simpler routes,” added Donati.
More details regarding Italy’s first agriPV tender can be seen here (in Italian).
