The latest edition of Key Energy, Italy’s top solar event, shows that the nation is once again poised for growth. It also shows that incentive schemes can turn agrivoltaics and large-scale storage into market drivers like rooftop and ground-mounted PV.
Italy’s leading solar event, Key Energy, was held in the city of Rimini last week, bringing in more visitors than in the past, according to Italian Exhibition Group (IEG).
“Key Energy shows closed their doors today at Rimini Expo Centre with plus-41% in total attendance compared to 2021 (and plus-15% over the record edition of 2019), also recording double foreign attendance (from 90 countries),” the company said, without providing more specific figures.
Italian companies and international solar players are showing greater confidence in the Italian PV market, which is set to regain its gigawatt-size market status, following several years of limited growth.
“This year, for the first time, there was a new breath of optimism and dynamism,” said Michelangelo Lafronza, the secretary of ANIE Rinnovabili, the Italian renewable energy association. “We believe that the situation we are experiencing throughout Europe has brought renewables into the limelight. The need to reduce energy costs is combined with the need to protect the environment.”
He said that agrivoltaics are becoming a key market driver in the Italian energy landscape.
“According to new data from the Ministry of the Ecological Transition, there are currently 338 agrivoltaic projects totaling 15 GW that are currently under review to secure an environmental impact assessment,” he told pv magazine. “This compares to 140 projects for ground-mounted installations totaling 5.1 GW.”
Lafronza noted that Italian grid operator Terna and the energy regulator, Arera, are currently setting up a new auction scheme for large-scale storage facilities.
“Although is it still unclear if the operators participating to the auctions will also be remunerated for grid services or not, the scheme is raising big expectations in the sector and should trigger more growth,” he said.
He noted that 38 of the 578 projects include storage capacity, for a total of 1,250 GW.
“A regulatory and regulatory framework is finally being created in which there will actually be several tens of GWh of storage systems to be built,” said Daniele Rosati, coordinator of the Utility Scale Storage Systems Group of ANIE Federazione. “This news, together with the presence at the conference of many Italian and foreign sector operators, confirms that Italy is shaping up as one of the most important markets for storage systems worldwide for the next decade:”
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