Edp continues to bet on Italy: 220 million for 220 MW in 2025

Edp, an international energy company based in Portugal, continues to focus on Italy: 'For the current year we have investments in the country for 220 million,' explains Roberto Pasqua, country lead Italy of the Edp group and executive director South & East Eu of Edp Renewables (Edpr), the division that deals with renewables (excluding hydro): '200 million are for utility scale plants with 130 MW of wind projects and 70 MW of photovoltaic in development, and 20 are for distributed generation. And investments for 2026, for which we are planning plants for another 100 MW, will hopefully be in line with these. In Europe, Italy is a core market for the group, along with Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and Poland. Edp is also active in other important markets in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region. The current operating portfolio in Italy is more than 600 MW and in 2024 we realised almost 10 per cent of global profits here: more than EUR 120 million out of the total profit of EUR 1.4 billion of Edp, which boasts a production park of 32 GW'.

The group has 60 employees in Italy, and has been present since 2010 with Edpr, for the development of utility scale plants, and Edp Energia Italia, which is active in distributed generation, offering self-consumption solutions for mainly industrial customers, with contracted capacity of around 150 MW. Since 2010, Edpr has installed about 1 GW in Italy, investing almost EUR 1.3 billion in utility scale plants, a figure that also includes asset rotations: 172 MW of wind power sold to Erg in 2022 and 191 MW of wind power sold to Plt in 2024. 'The sale of assets to finance new initiatives is a strategy that is part of our business plan and I do not exclude that we will continue to follow it in Italy as well,' Pasqua concludes.

"In the five-year period 2020-2024 we were the first international investor in Italy with almost 700 MW of new renewable capacity added," the manager continues. He goes on to explain why our market remains attractive: "It has huge potential for renewables: there is sun and wind, especially in the south, so it is a good country for the resource. It is good for the price of energy, since it is closely linked to gas, therefore with the need to build alternatives to fossil fuels. Finally, it is a country with political stability that makes it attractive to an international investor. Although there are negative aspects such as bureaucracy, regulatory changes with little clarity in the regulatory framework, the positive ones make Italy a market to watch'.

The company will participate in the FerX auctions for the award of feed-in tariffs for renewable technologies opening now in July, 'we expect a competitive game for solar, more difficult for wind. However, the mechanism is a correct tool even if it only covers 2025 at the moment, and the expectation was for the long term,' Pasqua points out. It will also take part in the first Macse (storage futures market) auction called by Terna in September for energy storage projects: 'We have a pipeline of 500 MW for this technology in Italy, which will be, together with solar and wind power, one of the three pillars on which the new business plan that we will present by the end of the year will be based,' the manager concludes. Edp recently announced a partnership with Igat (Siad Group) to develop a distributed generation photovoltaic plant integrated with a storage system.