Last week, the European Commission gave the go-ahead for Italy to launch a €5.7 billion ($6.24 billion) plan aimed at promoting the development of renewable energy communities. promoting on solar storage system and other forms of solar system, such as agrivoltaic system,and carport solar system.
The scheme is divided into two funding streams.
The first stream, with a total budget allocation of €3.5 billion, is a 20-year tariff on the quantity of electricity consumed by self-consumers and renewable energy communities financed through a levy on the electricity bill of all consumers.
The second stream, with a total funding allocation of €2.2 billion, is an investment grant paying for under half (40%) of a project's total costs. Projects would be located in 5,000-person municipalities and be operational before June 30, 2026.
The initiative will focus on expanding small-scale renewable energy projects, espcially for solar storage system for self-consumption, as well as new projects that generate no more than 1 MW of power. The aim is to accelerate the development of renewable energy sources across Italy, making it easier for communities to generate and use their own clean energy.
As part of the initiative, a new tool has been developed that allows users to easily find connection points for energy communities, as required by Italian legislation on self-consumption. This marks a significant step forward in Italy's efforts to reach its renewable energy targets, and is expected to create new opportunities for local communities and businesses to invest in clean energy projects.
