Italy's solar profit clawback to have 'significant influence' on renewables financial investment, profession bodies warn

• A brand-new policy in Italy that claws back the profits of solar PV projects will certainly weaken investor confidence and jeopardise the European Union's (EU) clean power transition, a group of profession associations, consisting of SolarPower Europe, has actually warned.

Renewables plants that are presently benefiting from high electrical energy rates will be called for to pay back a resulting boost in profits to the government up until completion of 2022, as part of the measures introduced last month.

The profit clawback relates to solar projects with a capacity above 20kW that get feed-in tolls with the nation's Conto Energia plan along with merchant solar, wind, hydro and geothermal power plants with an output of more than 20kW.

The procedures "will cause considerable wholesale energy markets distortions", claimed a joint declaration today from organizations including Italia Solare, WindEurope and also utilities trade body Eurelectric, to name a few.

They claimed the "complicated and inequitable actions" will certainly jeopardise the EU's Fit for 55 climate strategy while additionally having "substantial impacts" on renewables financial investments.

To figure out if solar projects have taken advantage of added profits, there will certainly be a computation of the ordinary market value that they received up until the current power crisis started. If costs go above a specific degree, project owners need to pay the "added profit" to Italy's power management agency GSE.

These profits will certainly after that be used to aid fund a EUR1.7 billion (US$ 1.9 million) power bundle revealed by Italy's government last month that is focused on suppressing rising power expenses.

The organizations' statement said that going forward with the current variation of the law "risks further decreasing the energy shift process in Italy as well as Europe, threatening crucial investments for the entire economic climate".

Indicating a comparable intervention in Spain last year-- when the federal government introduced a step limiting the windfall profits of some renewables plants-- the organizations have actually called on Italy's government to withdraw the policy as well as rather initiate a dialogue to define efficient options to tackle high energy costs.

While Italy presently has the European Union's second-largest solar fleet-- at 22GW-- the nation just deployed 800MW last year, with permitting problems postponing project development.

Research released previously this week by think tank Ember stated that Italian solar growth has plateaued, with much of the stagnation as a result of delays in protecting preparation legal rights. The nation is intending to reach a minimum of 51GW of deployed solar PV by 2030.