Italian energy agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE) allocated only 73 MW of renewables capacity in the country's fifth clean energy auction for projects with capacities above 1 MW.
The procurement exercise, which drew bids for 98.9 MW of capacity, was once again under-subscribed. The government initially hoped to assign 1.48 GW of new projects.
Wind power was again the leading source, with 259 MW allocated across three sites. The GSE also awarded 32.2 MW of solar capacity across eight locations. These include two PV projects submitted by Enel Green Power Srl — part of Italian utility Enel's Enel Green Power Spa division — to be located in the province of Ferrara, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, with capacities ranging from 4 to 8 MW. Another Enel Green Power affiliate, Enel Green Power Solar Energy S.R., secured two projects with a combined capacity of 4 MW in the Sicilian province of Siracusa.
Also aiming to build a PV plant in Sicily is Sunprime Generation, which secured 3.4 MW for its planned project in the province of Messina with the auction's lowest bid of €0.0685/kWh. All the other bids were slightly higher in value.
In the fourth procurement exercise, finalized in January, the lowest bid came in at €0.06819/kWh and was submitted for a 10 MW solar project. Overall, only 20 MW of solar were allocated.
In the third renewables auction, held in October, the GSE had assigned 95.5 MW of solar capacity across four locations. The lowest bid – submitted for a PV project – was €0.06490/kWh. The big surprise in that tender was the inclusion of an 82.3 MW solar power plant to be built in the Sardinian municipality of Uta, near Cagliari.
The limited success of solar in these exercises is due to tender rules that exclude projects on agricultural land. The Italian government hopes to allocate approximately 4.8 GW of generating capacity in the auction scheme, which includes smaller procurement rounds for projects under 1 MW.
Italy, which has over 21 GW of solar capacity, is planning to install around 50 GW by 2030.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
6 comments
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.