country focus: italy
Legislation
Italy introduced a feed-in law for renewable energies in July 2005, and the last decree from February 2007 has developed the photovoltaic market.
Besides high sun irradiation, Italy offers a very attractive support scheme, mixing net-metering and a well-segmented premium Feed-in Tariff (FiT).
The main Italian support policy for PV is a Premium FiT paid on the electricity produced by PV technologies. This Feed-in Tariff is paid by GSE (Gestore dei Servizi Elettrici) and changes according to the plant size and level of building integration.
The incentives are granted for 20 years up to a limit of 1,200 MW. The rate suffers a decrease of 2% till 2010 when a new law issued by the Minister of Economic Development will determine new tariffs for PV plants starting their work after 31 December 2010.
From January 2009, the Italian government extended the net-metering (‘Scambio sul posto’) to PV systems up to 200 kW and modified the calculation method. In fact, the new net-metering is based on the balance of the value of the energy fed into the grid and the value of the expenditure to buy electricity from the grid. If, over a time period, there is an excess of electricity fed into the grid, the PV system owner gets a credit (unlimited in time) for the value of the excess of electricity. This measure is very attractive for the residential, public and commercial sectors.
