Photovoltaics, why the stop on fields could lead to higher bills

The revision of the rules of the game for the installation of photovoltaic panels on agricultural land, announced by the ministers for Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida , and for the Environment, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, intervenes in a system that is now so complex that the full effects are difficult to estimate in the immediate future and will only be measurable with time. But some practical implications are evident right now: if the ban on installing ground-mounted panels on land used for agricultural purposes is confirmed across the board, there is a serious risk that it will translate into an increase in the price of energy, but also in the charges that will weigh on the bills paid by citizens and businesses, is high.

A risk highlighted by all sector associations, such as Elettricità Futura, Utilitalia , Italia Solare. It is not certain that the rule, as announced on Monday 6 May, will not be amended or that ministerial decrees will not be issued to determine how thick the mesh of the ban will have to be. "With the decree on suitable areas - which is currently at a standstill in the Conference of the Regions - we will see that the appropriate corrections are made. It is a joint proposal, the offices will see to adjust the proposal of suitable areas to the latest decree,' Pichetto Fratin explained in recent days.

The exemption granted for the construction on agricultural land of agri-voltaic plants, raised at least two metres above the ground to allow crops to be established underneath, risks forcing the holders of practices initiated for the photovoltaic authorisation request to change the project to agri-voltaic (and this will lengthen the timeframe considerably). To date, the dossiers initiated to request new connections to Terna's grid are for 300 gigawatts: a significant size, which goes well beyond the additional 140 gigawatts that Italy would have to install to reach the ambitious 2030 targets signed at the G7 Energy summit in Turin at the end of April. Not all of them will be successful: in any case, if most of them are forced to shift to agri-voltaics, the costs for building the plants will double. The competitive advantage that panels have gained in recent years is precisely in the fact that material and installation costs have fallen impressively (although they have started to rise a little again in the last couple of years), causing the price of the energy produced to fall as well. But if costs explode, the impact on the final price of energy will be inevitable.

To get an idea of the numbers, one only has to look at the ministerial decrees for incentives issued by the Ministry for the Environment: the decree for agri-voltaics recognises tariffs of 170 euros per megawatt-hour (these are prices at which those who build the plant can sell the energy). Photovoltaics, as stated in the draft Fer X decree, is around 80-90 euro per megawatt hour (although negotiations are underway to raise this threshold). Therefore, if market pressure is shifted to agri-voltaics there will be a series of knock-on effects. For those who build such plants there are only two sources of revenue: long-term contracts with a corporate counterpart that buys a supply of energy for a set number of years (the Ppa contracts). These are contracts that began to spread in Italy after the energy crisis: energy-intensive companies began to enter into them to lower their costs.

The only alternative to PPPs are incentives. But if regulations push agri-voltaics and block the rest there will be a reduction in Ppa contracts as a consequence, because it would be more difficult, at higher prices, to find counterparts in the market. The pressure would shift to incentives, which of necessity are those for agri-voltaics. As we have seen, these incentives are higher: a portion of them (about one billion) is financed by debt with the NDP. But if the pressure increases, as is inevitable, those funds will not be enough: so there will be a substantial slice of system charges to finance the incentives (much more expensive than those for photovoltaics) that will end up among the items foreseen in the bill.