Italy ends 2024 with +7.5 GW of installed power from renewables.
We are close to the target of 8/10 GW to meet the 2030 objectives. The progression that renewables are following in recent years is interesting.
2024 will end with a new installed capacity from renewable sources of 7.5 GW. We are also seeing a change in the mix of new renewable capacity in operation, with more and more plants connected to the national transmission grid compared to the past, when the majority of new operations coming into operation were linked to medium and low voltage, and a consequent potential positive impact on the cost of energy. In addition to this, we are receiving record demand for connection requests for storage plants, which will also be the subject of the new MACSE (Terminal Storage Market) auctions in spring 2025.
This is said by Francesco Del Pizzo, Head of Network Development and Dispatching Strategies, Terna.
Last year’s official data have not yet been released by the company that manages electricity transmission on the national electricity grid. However, the mid-year reports, added to these declarations, illustrate a perspective with a much more positive trend.
In fact, already in the first 10 months of the year, the renewable capacity in operation recorded an increase of 6,042 MW (of which 5,482 MW of photovoltaic). This value is 1,489 MW higher (+33%) compared to the same period of the previous year and exceeds the figure for the whole of 2023, which was approximately 5,800 MW. As of October 31st, they are registered in Italy 75.2 GW of installed power from renewable sources, of which, in detail, 35.8 GW of solar and 12.9 GW of wind.
In December 2019, Italy adopted the National Integrated Plan for Energy and Climate (PNIEC), which set the overall national objective of 30% of gross energy consumption met by renewable energy sources by 2030. Within the PNIEC, approved in June 2024, the targets were reviewed and set at 138 GW of generation capacity from renewable plants by 2030, of which 80 GW of photovoltaic and 28 GW of wind.
The data tells us that there is still a long way to go, but the progression is evident. As Stefano Ciafani, national president of Legambiente, explains, we must be careful to preserve this positive curve.
The progression of the energy revolution continues: in fact there were 1.5 GW in 2021, 3 in 2022, almost 6 in 2023. This is the good news. The bad news is that in 2024 the government launched an ideological agriculture decree (if you really want to stop land consumption, new logistics hubs and new residential or production areas are prohibited and not ground-based photovoltaics) and the Suitable Areas decree which, in a Pilatesque way, it delegates the Regions to identify them (if the other Regions do like Sardinia, everything will stop, to the great happiness of the gas lords).
The Suitable Areas decree and the agriculture decree, signed last July, risk bringing problems to Italian RES. The first, in fact, leaves discretion to the Regions with non-homogeneous criteria at a national level; furthermore, it is retroactive, putting the authorization process of the areas already identified at risk. The second, however, could lead to a stop in photovoltaics on agricultural land.
The road to achieving the 2030 objectives therefore still appears to be difficult, but let’s start the year with this good news and renewed momentum.
