Solar May Hit 5-10 Pct of Italy Power Mix by 202O

Italy may meet 5-10 percent of its total power needs from solar panels by 2020 as it boosts incentives to develop the sector, the head of an industry association said on Tuesday.

“Photovoltaic energy may cover 5-10 percent of global power demand in the future,” said Gert Gremes, chairman of GIFI, a body grouping 45 companies in Italy that are active in photovoltaic energy, which turns sunlight into power.
Italy, which lags behind European leaders like Germany in developing green energy, aims to catch up with Europe’s efforts to fight global climate change and passed a law in February to boost incentives for photovoltaic energy generation.

“We hope that in Italy too it will happen by 2020, if all the existing incentives are developed,” Gremes told Reuters at the European photovoltaic energy conference in Milan.

The long-awaited law has scrapped limits on annual incentives to install new solar modules, boosted subsidies for households to put solar batteries on roofs to generate power and obliged newly built houses to have integrated solar systems.

Sector experts at the conference said the law would trigger an explosive growth of photovoltaic energy generation in sun-lit Italy and draw billions of dollars in investments as generation costs — currently about double the cost of traditional fuel-fired generation — were set to fall.

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