Swedish thin film solar manufacturer Midsummer has secured roughly €8 million (US$8.6 million) to support the development of its 50MW copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film cell manufacturing plant in Italy.
PV Tech spoke with Alejandra Pérez-Plá, regional manager – Mediterranean at financial advisory firm Global Capital Finance about challenges related to land acquisition for utility-scale solar PV projects in Southern Europe, how to manage these issues and grid modernisation.
The Pope has ordered that a solar PV project be built in the Vatican City, with a capacity sufficient to power all of the mini-state’s electricity needs.
Earlier this month the agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced a plan to "put an end to the wild installation of ground-mounted photovoltaics" on land classified as agricultural land.
The Italian government has banned solar PV installations on agricultural land in a move that the nation’s solar trade association said would cost Italy €60 billion (US$64.5 billion).
As Italy’s solar market looks to be finding its feet after a decade of stumbling around below the 1GW mark, 2024 could be the year it starts to cover real ground again.
