Italy Awards 1.4GW OF AgriPV Projects

Italy had announced a national recovery and resilience plan (PNRR) in January this year that had set aside €1.7 billion for Agri PV. The target was to add over 1 GW of Agri PV, which has been handily beaten in the anew allocations.  The financing from PNRR also ensured that the ban did not apply for these projects.

Being relatively smaller projects ranging from 250 kW to 25 MW, the government expects all of them to be operational by mid-2026, with some expected to be commissioned as early as June next year.

While the sub 1MW projects  have averaged bids at €88.92/MWh , the larger projects over 1MW came in at an average price of €79.86/MWh. Bidders have benefited from the drop in panel prices seen during the year, as well as the high inventory levels in Europe currently, which will provide many with the visibility for prices in the medium term as well. Italy of course is one of the European centres where solar modules are also being manufactured as well.

Among regions, Sicily in the south has 336MW across 33 projects.

The largest awarded project seems to be for 270MW for European Energy.

While the tender denotes progress for solar PV in Italy, overall issues remain with the country lagging behind many others in terms of pace and response to tenders. For now, many believe that the market is dependent on larger developers to push it forward, as they have the access to finance to procure low and compete effectively, leaving out many of the smaller developers who simply cannot match such low prices.

Europe is betting big on Agri PV to deliver higher incomes to farmers, mitigate farm emissions as well as meet overall transition targets. A lot of research efforts have been expended in Germany for instance, in making a case for Agri PV and options within that. There are even hopes that AgriPV could surpass other PV options to be the largest PV segment in the continent by 2030.