Italy Deployed More Than 1GW of Solar in 1H 2022

According to the latest data from the industry association (Italia Solare), with the surge of installations in the first half of 2022, Italy will usher in the best year of solar deployment in a decade. From January to June 2022, Italy added 1012MW PV power, an increase of 149% over 406MW in the same period last year. This year hit the record of 1GW for the first time in almost a decade, the last time was in 2013.

According to the data of Italia Solare, Italy has deployed a total of 23.6GW of solar energy, including 12.9GW of industrial and commercial solar, 5.5GW of residential?solar and 5.2GW?of utility-scale solar, which are mainly concentrated in northern Italy. In 2021, Italy's PV?installed capacity reached 936MW, and residential PV was particularly prosperous last year, up 62% compared with 2020. One of the main reasons of such increase was that the system capacity is getting larger. The installation of 6-10kW systems reached 196% annual growth, while the installation of 3-4.5kW systems decreased by 42%, and the installation of utility-scale systems (projects larger than 1MW) also decreased by 26%.

In June 2022, Italy allocated 300MW solar energy in the latest renewable energy auction. Among the winning projects, the capacity of 27 projects was less than 10MW, while the capacity of the remaining 8 projects ranged from 11.8 to 53MW.

Last week, Italy launched a call for a €1.5 billion rebate scheme for PV in agricultural buildings, hoping to deploy 375 MW of new PV power generation capacity through the scheme. Applications must be submitted through GSE between September 27 and October 27, 2022. In March 2022, Italy accelerated the licensing process of solar energy below 200kW and allocated €2.67 billion to help small and medium-sized enterprises deploy seif-consumption?PV systems. The funds will be used to help enterprises afford part of the cost of purchasing and installing solar panels. The high electricity price will continue to promote the development of residential?and C&I PV in Italy. Coupled with the policy support of the Italian government, we expect the PV deployment will be around 2GW in 2022.