In the renewable energy sector, Italy is not keeping pace with Europe: in 2020 the installed power in our country decreased by 35% while globally the renewable energy market is booming and Europe has "celebrated "last year the breakthrough of 650 GW of total installed power.
This is stated in the Renewable Energy Report 2021 drawn up by the Energy & Strategy Group of the School of Management Politecnico di Milano.
The report, now in its seventh edition, specifies that "the new renewable power installed in our country in 2020 was 784 MW, 35.4% less (427 MW) compared to 2019, mainly due to the decline in new wind farms. , dropped by 79% from 413 MW in 2019 to just 85 MW in 2020. As always, last year it was photovoltaics that led the ranking of installations with 625 MW, while hydroelectric stopped at 66 MW and biomass to 8 MW ".
In Europe, explains the report, photovoltaics and wind have crossed the threshold of 160 and 200 GW respectively in just over a decade in a path towards decarbonisation by 2050 that is catalyzing the interest of the industrial and financial world. The same cannot be said for Italy which stalled in 2018. "The decline in the market in our country was stronger than elsewhere, demonstrating the fragility of the system" explains Davide Chiaroni, Deputy Director of the Energy & Strategy Group of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, placing the accent "on the strong growth, despite everything, of technologies associated with renewables, in particular photovoltaic and wind power: the presence of important investments andidentification of the trajectory of decarbonisation has allowed the development of more competitive solutions from the point of view of costs, capable of enabling markets 'only' for renewables ".
The cost of energy produced by photovoltaic systems, explains the Polytechnic in a nite, is mainly conditioned by that of the enabling technologies, in particular of the photovoltaic modules and the materials that compose them, but the significant technological evolution is allowing to reach competitive levels at those of fossil sources.
According to the report, there are two "nodes" that are holding back growth in Italy and are connected to the legislative and regulatory framework which, in addition to slowing down the development of the market, have a non-negligible cost impact, because authorization delays lead to fewer plants competitors in auctions, and brings with it planning, evaluation and monitoring difficulties. In the last year, some changes have been introduced - from the simplification of the procedure for the modernization of existing plants to the possibility of accessing the incentive mechanisms of the Fer 1 Decree for plants that have not accepted the voluntary incentive spreaders, from the introduction of Energy Communities in the national regulatory framework to the establishment of the new Ministry of Ecological Transition - however, it is theanalysis of the Polytechnic, according to the opinions of operators in the sector, the path taken is not courageous enough, the relaunch of the renewables market would require more targeted interventions.
