Magazine article

The energy transition in Italy is going through one of its most critical moments with an unprecedented need to accelerate renewable generation and reduce gas consumption in a context of a European-wide supply crisis due to Russia's war in Ukraine

Italy is the third largest producer of renewable electricity on the continent and a third of its production already comes from clean energy. However, the challenges are ambitious and demanding. 

The REPowerEU target assigned to the country until last week involved the development of 80GW of installed capacity which means an increase from 41% renewable generation in 2021 to 84% by 2030. These figures should now be increased following the European Parliament's announcement last week to increase the percentage of total final energy consumption from 32% to 45%.

Despite the need to increase the reliability of the legal framework and awaiting the new government's announcements to implement the necessary mechanisms to turn the targets into reality, Italy has made great strides in the last year.

Solar PV is going through a sweet moment, which is also expected to increase with the implementation of agrovoltaic plants. According to a recently published report by Italia Solare, 1,012 new MWh of PV were installed in the first six months of 2022, an increase of +149% compared to the first half of 2021. This positive trend is also reflected in the latest data from ANIE Rinnovabili, which records 1,061 MW of new connected capacity for photovoltaic (+193%), 123 MW for wind (+66%) and 27 MW for hydro (+72%) compared to 2021. 

The main challenges now lie in accelerating projects and therefore the grid capacity and connection points. Total cumulative PV capacity now stands at 23,577 MW, still far from the 50 GW expected by 2030. 

The country has also made progress in 2022 in energy storage projects with Terna’s auction for the installation of 1.1 GW of new storage capacity, as well as with the creation of green hydrogen hubs, which are key to increasing energy independence and reducing dependence on gas.

The energy transition demands unprecedented synergies, agreements and investments. Energyear Italia brings together today the main representatives of the entire value chain to share best practices and explore business opportunities. 

It's networking time.

It's Energyear time.