ReneSola Power has formed a partnership with UK-based Emeren to co-develop ground-mounted solar projects in Italy.
The solar developers will work on plants of different sizes across the country, with a target of reaching 110MW shovel-ready projects by 2022.
“Together with Emeren, we expect to bring a range of high-quality projects to the Italian market, enabling further growth in the region,” said Josef Kastner, CEO of ReneSola Power European region.
ReneSola ended the first quarter of the year with a late-stage project pipeline of 1.3GW spread across eight markets: the US, Poland, the UK, Spain, China, France, Hungary and Germany. CEO Yumin Liu said at the time that the company was considering expanding into two or three European countries.
The firm has since further bolstered its position in Poland, picking up 33MW of solar projects under the country’s recent renewables auctions.
Its expansion in Italy comes after the country installed 625MW of new solar PV in 2020 and 174MW in Q1 2021, according to SolarPower Europe’s Global Market Outlook report. The trade body recently called on Italy’s government to remove permitting restrictions to speed up solar deployment.
Other developments in the country’s energy sector have seen transmission system operator Terna earmark €18.1 billion (US$21.4 billion) over the ten years to strengthen the grid and support the integration of more renewables projects. It said the plan will make it possible to reduce carbon emissions by 5.6 million tonnes per year.