The new photovoltaic road in Italy

From the Special QualEnergia.it-Key Energy

Long gone the boom years of the Energy Account, ceased at the end of 2013, the PV sector seems to have left behind also the "crossing of the desert" in the following years, with annual installations dropping from several GW to a few hundred MW, essentially residential facilities supported by tax deductions.

There has been a consolidation and a reorientation of the sector: many companies have left the market, others have continued to make plants with a completely different perspective, focusing on maximizing theconsumption; then he focused onO & M of the existing plant in many cases essential also to withstand the blow of the Spalma-incentives.

In the meantime, technology has become more competitive: even small-medium sized installations are slowly being revived not incentivized, those based on self-consumption but not supported by deductions, and a market of large ground-based plants was started up in market parity, that without being encouraged they can compete by selling wholesale electricity, almost always thanks to contracts PPA.

But the restart is only at the beginning: according to the forecasts of the national energy and climate plan, there must be on average 900 MW of new installations every year until 2025 and around 4.8 GW / year from 2025 to 2030 (graph, E&S Group processing from PNIE data).

How to get there? A party, in reality modest, will be issued by the decree Fer 1, which entered into force after a long wait. But more than incentives, the PV needs to be removed obstacles: the jungle of authorization procedures and the prohibition ofcollective self-consumption, which will be passed with the transposition of the new European directives.

Then there are various factors that in the coming years promise to catalyze growth of the solar, like the diffusion of the systems of accumulation, the opening of the network services market to renewables, the spread of electric mobility and the growing demand for green energy by companies and citizens.

… we talk about it with Davide Chiaroni (Energy & Strategy Group of the Politecnico di Milano)

How is the Italian photovoltaic market going?

In 2019 there was significant growth compared to 2018, the year that marked the end of the crisis: an increase of 20% in installments. The segment of medium and large sizes plants, those above 500 kW and MW, and between 100 and 300 kW, ie industrial and commercial projects, which had suffered the most in previous years, also started to grow again. This, it must be emphasized, before the effects of the decree Fer 1 are manifested.

What do you expect from the new incentives?

It is not certain that the results of the first auction, probably conditioned by expectant strategies, are representative: it will be in the second that we will see trends. However, there is no doubt that the system is calibrated to revive the large-scale plant market.

Something was already moving even with projects in market parity …

This segment is already benefiting from the drop in technology costs and has reached a good degree of bankability, but without incentives it was possible investments only in particular conditions, with certain zonal prices. With the decree there will be a more widespread market.

On the technology front, what are the current trends?

Trackers are now the standard for large ground-based systems. They are also interesting, perhaps more for medium sizes than for larger ones, all the technologies that improve the efficiency of the modules, such as the PERC. Great progress has been made on plant engineering, BOS, monitoring: on string management, selection of inverters, mapping, for example, has been learned from the many mistakes made in the past, at the time of the boom. Instead I see less attention for alternative technologies, such as organic cells and thin film: research is lively, but given the ever-increasing convenience and reliability of conventional modules, a technological leap is now unlikely.

Much is instead expected from the double-sided modules. What do you think?

The double-sided has the advantage of increasing the yield and extending the production curve. However, there is a test theme to define the duration of these cells and to understand how permanent this effect is. It is a solution that will be calibrated on the use made of it: I would expect a greater spread on medium sizes, where it is important to cover the consumption curve as much as possible, compared to utility scale, where robustness and reliability have priority .

The PNIEC foresees a strong development of the FV between now and 2030, what are the factors that can accelerate growth and which ones are holding it back?

The big block is on the regulatory front: fragmented and unclear authorization procedures and policy uncertainty. Among the development enablers, on the other hand, the participation in the network services market will be very important, both for large plants and for smaller sizes, if we imagine aggregation systems. One of the factors with which PNIEC has not taken into account is the volatility of electricity prices: a stabilization of revenue for projects involves the diversification of forms of energy remuneration. The development of electric mobility will be another driver. Then there is the release of the collective self-consumption foreseen by the new European directives: it could be a great opportunity, even if we have to deal with the technical limits: I see an exploitable potential more in the commercial / industrial than in the residential one.

The appointments of Key Energy 2019 on photovoltaics

6 November – 9.30 am / 1.00 pm

The evolution of the Italian electricity system. Future scenarios, between decarbonisation and innovation

7 November – 2.00 pm / 6.00 pm

Energy communities and prosumers

8 November – 10.00 / 12.30

Modernize Italian photovoltaics

8 November – 10.00 / 12.30

PV between new incentives and market parity

All seminars and conferences

You might also like: