The Italian energy transition represents one of the most important events towards low carbon Europe. In the country today renewable energy covers 39.4 per cent of electricity national generation. The main source is coming from hydroelectric plants (40%), followed by solar (20.4%), wind (17.4%), bioenergy (16.9%) and geothermal (5.2%).
The development of renewable energy plants has increased, thanks also to the support schemes implemented over the years like feed-in tariffs, Green Certificates, feed-in-premium, off-take regime, net metering services. Renewable energy policies represent a core element of Italy’s energy and economic policy. The incentives system has proved to be effective in allowing the country to reach its 2020 objectives long before the deadline. Moreover, in a possible future where incentives are being phased out, financial PPAs could play an important role to ensure the bankability of projects.
The achievement of the Italian energy transition targets, summarised in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), moves also towards installing new generation capacity and maintaining, valorising and improving existing capacity. Currently, the main incentives framework for newly built, repowered, revamped, partially, or fully renovated renewable energy plants is represented by the Ministerial Decree of 4 July 2019 (FER Decree), setting the regulation applicable for the period 2019–2021. It provides for registry and auctions requirements based on technological neutrality and the mechanism of contracts for difference. PPAs are also discussed in the, nevertheless, the subject matter is still under study by the government.
Furthermore, according to the Energy&Stratgy Group Renewable Energy Report 2019, the increase in the number of companies active in the O&M services in the last three years have caused the O&M service prices for PV plants to drop by more than 30% while those for wind plants by 25%.
In light of the 2030 renewable energy targets set by the PNIEC: 55.4% of renewables share for the electricity sector, 33% for heating & cooling sector, and 21.6% for the transport sector, installation of further renewable energy plants is mandatory and will likely continue to grow. It will also be necessary to address the issue of the identification of unsuitable areas for renewable energy plants to adopt a uniform approach, and guidelines to avoid pointless opposition from the regions and local entities to fully realise the Italian energy transition.
In the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), the government intention is focused on simplify the authorisation procedures and speeding up the full expansion of plant installation. Moreover, the government has also undertaken to strengthen and promote the creation of a national supply chain for renewable technologies, committing to around € 4 billion. Additionally, to the stand-alone solution, a new role in the Capacity Market will be played by storage systems coordinated with renewable energy plants through the creation of Virtual Qualified Mixed Units (UVAM): a group of generation, storage, and consumption units managed by a balancing service provider.
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