Italy

An Italian research team has developed a device that it says can easily be integrated into a PV cell, and can boost its efficiency by converting more light particles into a high energy state before they are absorbed by the cell. The scientists claim that their innovation could offer a green‐to‐blue photon upconversion yield as high as 15%.

The global solar market is growing rapidly but remains highly fragmented, Wood Mackenzie says.

According to figures from Italian renewables body ANIE Rinnovabili, 18,036 storage systems coupled to clean energy power generation have been installed in the country. Most of the batteries are in Lombardy, whose administration offers rebates.

Chinese state-owned PV manufacturer Jetion Solar says it has signed a deal with Italian government-owned oil and gas major Eni to develop a slew of new solar projects across five regions in the next three years in a deal worth €2 billion.

Jetion Solar and Risen Energy have made the latest in a fast-growing series of moves by Chinese operators to service reviving European markets, aided by last year’s scrapping of EU tariffs.

September 27 (Renewables Now) - Verditek Plc (LON:VDTK), the company producing lightweight solar panels in Italy, today raised GBP 600,000 (USD 739,500/EUR 676,400) in a share placing to speed up its growth plans, replenish working capital and fund a silicon/graphene solar project.

Scientists from Russia’s NUST MISIS institute and the University of Rome have discovered a two dimensional titanium carbide can improve the performance of a halide perovskite solar cell when added in microscopic amounts across the various cell layers.

Seraphim Solar System Co has turned to an existing Italian partner to try and secure a slice of the country’s PV market, poised for a multi-gigawatt boost within a decade.

The Italian energy company has committed to paying higher returns on today’s fundraising bond if it fails to ramp up its installed renewable energy generation capacity to 55% of its overall total by the end of 2021.

The colossal solar boom Italy wants to drive in a decade could lie beyond reach if developers do not act to embrace energy storage more decisively, industry players have argued at a recent event.

Subsidies are not the answer for Italy to revive its solar industry from the deadlock brought about by the scrapping of feed-in tariffs (FiT), operators have warned at an industry event.

Danish renewables developer European Energy has broken ground on a 103MW project in Italy, bringing a utility-scale newcomer to the Southern European state.

A new report from analysts at Wood Mackenzie forecasts 6.6 GWh of residential energy storage to be installed across Europe by 2024. The economics of the technology are at a tipping point, increasingly reaching grid parity in European markets. With rising electricity demand and falling battery system costs, the trend will further spread across the continent and fuel an uptick in demand.

The costs of residential solar-plus-storage have already dropped or will only take a few years to drop to nation-wide grid averages across key European markets, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Spain has an opportunity in its upcoming reform of electricity charging to clear hurdles for self-consumption and electric vehicles (EVs), according to national PV body UNEF.