Italy

Industry association SolarPower Europe expects little change in the line-up of Europe’s biggest residential battery markets in four years’ time, with a rush of retrofits as turn-of-the-century solar feed-in tariffs begin to expire, set to keep Germany way ahead of the pack.

The new company will comprise all group’s business for the development of renewable energy, the sale of energy solutions, and the creation of a widespread EV charging network.

Aukera Energy, launched as a brand today but staffed by clean energy professionals who have worked with backer AtlasInvest for at least a decade, says it already has more than 1 GW of solar and wind capacity under development in Italy, Poland and the U.K. and wants to almost treble the scale of that portfolio within 12 months.

An unspecified sum is being provided by the European Union to help Enel become a large-scale PV panel manufacturer. The Italian company secured the funds through the Innovation Fund

Developed by Italian dry bottom ash handling system provider Magaldi Power, the system produces green thermal energy — steam or hot air — which can be used directly in industrial plants or for the generation of electricity using steam turbines. The system consists of a blower, a fluidization air blowing system, a fluidization air suction system, an air filter and fan, an air pre-heater, and an integrated thermal energy storage module. Silica sands are the system’s storage media.

The Euro trade body has promised to monitor the developing solar jobs market annually from now on, and pointed to Poland’s position at the top of the tree of EU member states for PV jobs last year as evidence the technology can still benefit from legislative backing.

Developed by cleantech company Verditek, the flexible module has a 20.1% efficiency and a weight of 4.9kg. It can bend up to 35% using standard 160µ-thick crystalline cells.

Sergio Matalucci reports for pv magazine from the Key Energy event in Rimini on how the Italian solar market is currently dealing with the module price hike and the supply change disruption. According to the president of Italian association Italia Solare, difficulties to source modules in the market have intensified over the last four months.

In a chat with pv magazine at the Key Energy event in Rimini, Roberta Valenziani, of Italian trade body Elettricità Futura, explained the factors preventing Italy’s PV market from having a renaissance. She said the country has Europe’s longest delays and highest costs for obtaining permits for large scale solar.

Efforts are being made to come up with a less convoluted approach to planning farm-based solar systems, in the only EU member state which explicitly apportioned funds for agrivoltaics in its post-Covid spending plans.