Italy More Upbeat On Green Targets After 1.8 GW Auction In Jan

Italy is more confident about meeting green energy targets after awarding 1.8 gigawatts of capacity in January helped by a faster permitting process, energy transition minister Roberto Cingolani said on Tuesday.

Italy’s byzantine authorisation process has slowed down the rollout of new green energy schemes, jeopardising access to EU recovery funds and the achievement of climate goals.

Last year it introduced new rules to try and cut red tape as it looks to add around 8 GW of capacity a year to 2030, when it hopes to have 70% of power generated from renewables.

“We are seeing improvement in the permitting pipeline,” Cingolani said in a parliamentary hearing.

Italy has introduced a five-year timetable of auctions to assign new renewables capacity, starting this year, to attract investors and developers.

The 1.8 GW of capacity assigned in January was more than three times the average demand of around 0.5 GW seen in previous auctions.

“We are happy with the first auction,” Cingolani said, but warned it still fell short of the 2.5-3.0 GW of capacity that was actually on offer.

“We hope to get demand above the offer… if not we will take more measures,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephen JewkesEditing by Cristina Carlevaro and Peter Graff)