Italy is on track to have its best year for solar PV deployment in a decade as installs jumped during H1 2022, according to new figures from industry association Italia Solare.
Between January and June, 1,012MW of new PV was added in the country, 149% more than the 406MW installed during the same period last year.
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Italia Solare said that while Italy is still a long way off 2011 – when a record 9,461MW was deployed – the trend is improving, when compared with last year.
Indeed, figures from the association show that the country hasn’t deployed more than 1GW of solar within a year since 2013.
According to a report published last year by trade association SolarPower Europe, solar in Italy has failed repeatedly in the country’s technology-neutral tenders, while permitting has also kept the power purchase agreement (PPA) segment from taking off.
In total, Italy now has 23,577MW of deployed solar PV, made up of 12,921MW of commercial and industrial systems, 5,486MW of residential installations and 5,170MW of utility-scale plants, Italia Solare’s figures show.
The association said that Italy’s northern regions install the most PV installations, while the centre and south of the country, despite higher levels of solar irradiation, are struggling to develop new systems.
Italy’s government launched a €1.5 billion (US$1.5 billion) scheme last week that aims to incentivise the installation of agrivoltaic projects.
Earlier this year, Italia Solare called on Italy to speed up the authorisation of new solar projects to reduce the country’s reliance on Russian gas.