ITALY RE-COMMITS TO SUN

New Italian Tariffs Complex and Robust; 1,200 MW Cap on 2011 Installations Greater than US Solar PV Installed in 2010, Effectively No Cap on Rooftop Systems, 2011 Cap only for 2nd Half--More than 2,000 MW May be Installed in 2011
Paul Gipe, July 9, 2011 (Wind-Works)

"…As Italy--like Spain and Portugal before it--faces a pubic debt crisis there were fears that the recently implemented Quarto Conto Energia (the 4th Energy Plan) would become a victim of budget-cutting excess. However, the…government has reaffirmed its commitment…"

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"The new plan, though more robust than most solar PV policies elsewhere, is extremely complex…Most significantly, the new policy tries to bring some order to what some observers described as a chaotic market. The policy sets out caps on installed capacity and spending for what the program calls large systems…In 2013 a German-style "growth corridor" will be introduced to adjust tariffs automatically by the rate of installation…The capacity limit on large systems varies from 1,500 MW in 2012 to 2,500 MW in 2016. The total spending cap for large systems over the life of the program is €2 billion…Small systems are excluded from the cap…"

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"…[T]he total amount of capacity installed per year could be substantially greater than the program's posted capacity limits…If the past is any guide, Italy could easily exceed 2,000 MW of total installations, small and large, in 2011…Altogether, Italy is targeting 23,000 MW of solar PV by 2017. Italy officially installed nearly 1,900 MW of solar PV in 2010…For comparison, the US installed nearly 1,000 MW of solar PV in 2010--its best year ever…The US is the world's largest economy and supports more than 300 million people. Italy is the world's seventh largest economy with 60 million inhabitants."