The Italian government has granted awards to 474 solar PV projects, with a combined capacity of 7.698GW, as part of the first auction of its Fonti di Energia Rinnovabile (FER) X transitional programme.
Organised by Italy’s energy management agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE), the auction awarded an average power price to successful solar projects of €56.825/MWh. The maximum price awarded stood at €62.675/MWh, and almost all of the 8GW of available solar capacity has been accounted for.
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This compares to just 940MW of wind capacity, across 29 projects, that received awards in the auction, for an average price of €72.851/MWh.
Solar PV and wind projects differed further in that one-third of successful wind projects are renovations—covering revamping and repowering work—accounting for more than half of the 940MW of total capacity. This compares to just one instance of revamping and repowering among the approved solar projects, with 473 new projects set to be constructed under the FER X auction.
The majority of solar projects are also of smaller capacities, with 353 projects of 10MW or less, accounting for 74.5% of the solar projects approved. Again, the wind sector differs, where 75.9% of projects are 10-50MW in scale.
Despite solar projects larger than 50MW accounting for the smallest number of projects approved in the auction, with just 47 projects given the green light, these projects accounted for more than 4GW of capacity, by far the most of any technology type and project size; the largest solar project approved is a 300MW facility in Castel Di Iudica, Catania, in Sicily.
The completion of the auction means that the majority of projects to make bids received awards; in September, bids for 12GW of total renewable energy capacity, alongside 10GW of solar PV capacity in particular, were made, aiming to secure Contracts for Difference (CfDs) from the government.
Plugging the ‘missing’ gaps in Italy’s energy mix
“The GSE plays a central role in the energy transition of our country,” said GSE president Paolo Arrigoni at an energy event held in Italy this week. “From a simple manager of incentive mechanisms, it is evolving towards that of a facilitator and enabler of the energy transition.”
However, Arrigoni noted that the GSC still aims to bring more renewable energy capacity into operation in Italy, noting that as of October 2024, Italy had around 80GW of renewable capacity in operation, compared to a 2030 deployment target of 131GW, and Arrigoni said 51GW of renewable energy capacity is therefore “missing”.
Part of this gap will be plugged by the second round of the FER X auction, which aims to award projects that use cells, modules and components specifically not made in China and include technologies such as heterojunction (HJT).
In its documentation for the second round of the auction, GSC notes that modules produced in the EU with a cell efficiency of 21.5% can receive a 2% premium in the next round of the auction, while modules with cells operating at a 23.5% efficiency can receive a 5% premium. Modules produced in the EU that use bifacial cells with HJT silicon or tandem cells of an efficiency at least 40% can receive a further 5% premium. GSC aims to award up to 1.6GW of solar capacity in this second auction, with a minimum award of 200MW.
