Italy is located in southern Europe, possesses one of the best sunshine resources, and a pace of solar development second only to Germany. However, the scale of solar power generation in Italy was mainly established at its peak in 2011. After that, the pace of new installations slowed significantly every year after its subsidy policy went into effect. Now sluggish solar energy development has restarted, exceeding 1 GW in the first half of this year alone.
Italy, especially the south, is a good region for developing solar energy due to its superior sunshine. In terms of overall solar energy scale, it currently ranks sixth in the world and ahead of Australia. However, there is still a lot of room for development. In recent years, solar power generation has only accounted for about 8% of the total power supply, while Italy has set a solar development target of 50 gigawatts in 2030, this is double its current level.
The development of solar energy in Italy mainly started in 2008. Before that, the annual installation volume was less than 100 megawatts. After 2008, the installation scale began to increase significantly under incentives provided by a subsidy policy. However, from 2008 to 2009, installation scale was only 400-500 megawatts per year. By 2011, with help from a global solar cell price collapse, peak installation was reached at nearly 9.5 GW of power generation capacity installed in one year, laying the foundation for current total solar power generation. At present, a considerable part of total solar power generation capacity has been established but, after the adjustment of the subsidy policy, new installation volume has declined sharply.
In 2011, Italy's total solar power generation capacity exceeded 10 GW in one fell swoop but its pace has slowed down since then and did not exceed 20 GW until 2018 and 22 GW in 2021. However, after a low point in 2014, the number of new installations has gradually increased every year and this year there is another explosive growth trend. In the first half of the year alone, 1.012 GW was installed, a 149% jump from the 406 GW in the same period in 2021. Italy, which has not installed more than 1 GW in a year since 2013, has now broken that record in half a year.
Italy currently has 23.577 GW of installed solar power capacity nationwide, 12.921 GW of industrial and commercial solar power, 5.486 GW of residential solar power, and 5.17 GW of grid-scale solar power plants. Unfortunately, Northern Italy, which has poor sunshine, has installed the most. Southern Italy, which has the most sunshine and the best sunshine resources, often faces obstacles in developing new solar energy projects.
Italy's electricity bidding method and obstacles to licensing operations have made it difficult for the power purchase contract market to develop, which is one of the main reasons for the sluggish pace of Italian solar energy after 2011. However, with changes in the international situation, the global pandemic and logistics chaos, coupled with soaring energy prices caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, solar energy has proven relatively favorable, which is the underlying economic factor for solar energy to surge again this year.
On the other hand, the Italian government has also introduced new subsidies, spending 1.5 billion euros to develop agricultural solar energy. This is partly due to the fact that, after the Russian-Ukrainian war, European countries were eager to find alternative energy sources to replace Russian natural gas. For Italy, abundant solar energy resources should not be wasted. Of course, it is necessary to develop as soon as possible, and the industry is also actively lobbying to promote solar energy to the national strategic level.
Southern Italy, especially Sicily, has superior sunshine, but the development of solar energy is relatively slow, so there is considerable room for development. Under the joint promotion of the international situation and government policies, Italian solar energy is expected to welcome a new wave of development.
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