Canadian renewables firm Westbridge Renewable Energy has expanded its presence in the European market by obtaining land and grid access for two solar PV projects in Italy.
Combining 62MW of capacity (32MW and 30MW), the projects will be located in the central regions of Lazio and Umbria. Both projects have secured land and grid access, with planning applications underway, and PV Tech has reached out to Westbridge about the expected commissioning time of both projects.
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Stefano Romanin, director and CEO at Westbridge, said: “Italy is a strong market with a favourable long-term outlook, poised to be one of the leading renewable energy markets in Europe.”
The growth of the Italian solar market has been undeniable in the past couple of years, after nearly a decade of installing less than 1GW of solar capacity. In 2022, the country added nearly 2.5GW and trade association Italia Solare expects the country to add 4GW of capacity in 2023.
Even though growth for 2023 is expected to come from residential solar, agrivoltaics (agriPV) in the utility-scale market continues to gain interest in Italy, as shown by a €1.7 billion (US$1.8 billion) scheme to support the deployment of more than 1GW of agriPV in the country, which received the green light from the European Commission in November.
A recent report from Italian transmission grid operator Terna highlighted that solar PV’s electricity generation in 2023 increased by 10.6%, to a record production of 30.6TWh.
In its home country of Canada, Westbridge has a solar PV portfolio of 1.4GW of projects currently under development, for which it sold a 278MW project – dubbed Georgetown – to Greek developer Mytilineos back in September 2023.
Stefano Romanin added: “The recent sale of Georgetown Solar has strengthened Westbridge’s capabilities to expand the project pipeline and to fuel the company’s growth strategy, in addition to delivering value to all Westbridge shareholders.”