The Ministry of Economic Development has announced the signing of the Decree Fer 1, which encourages renewable electricity sources. The Minister of Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio, and together with the Minister of the Environment, Sergio Costa, signed the final version of the decree, overcoming the critical points that emerged from the previous drafts, with the aim of supporting the production of energy from renewable sources to reach the European targets set for 2030 and defined by the Integrated national plan for energy and climate. Now we await the publication of the provision in the Official Journal, which could restore new vigour to the installation of plants powered by renewable sources.
Access to incentives will be governed by two distinct mechanisms:
a) Power plants of less than 1 MW will be registered in a special list, provided they fulfil the following requirements:
- they are newly built, completely reconstructed and reactivated;
- they have been subject to interventions aimed at increasing their power, if the difference between the power produced after the intervention and the capacity before the intervention is less than 1 MW;
- they have been rebuilt with a power output less than 1MW.
b) the auction procedure for installations with a power exceeding 1 MW.
Only newly built photovoltaic systems made with newly built components are allowed. Several aggregate plants belonging to the same group, with a unit power exceeding 20 kW, may also be registered, provided that the aggregate power of the aggregate is less than 1 MW. By analogy, aggregates made up of several plants belonging to the same group, with a unit power exceeding 20 kW and not exceeding 500 kW, may also participate in the auction procedures, provided that the total power of the aggregate is equal to or greater than 1 MW.
The operator implementing the procedures will be the Energy Services Manager, which will publish eight calls for bids and for registers. The Ministry provides a summary of the contents of the Decree to allow the construction of plants for a total power of about 8 thousand MW, with an increase in production from renewable sources of about 12 billion kWh and with activated investments estimated at around 10 billion euros.
With incentives, priority will be given to:
- plants built on closed landfills and on Sites of National Interest for the purposes of reclamation;
- photovoltaic systems built on schools, hospitals and other public buildings, replacing roofs of buildings and rural buildings on which the complete removal of eternity or asbestos is carried out;
- hydroelectric plants that respect the construction characteristics of the Ministerial Decree of 23 June 2016, those fuelled with gases left over from the purification processes or which provide for the roofing of the digestate tanks;
- all systems connected in "parallel" with the electricity grid and with the recharging columns of electric cars (provided that the recharging power is not less than 15% of the power of the plant and that each column has a power of at least 15 kW).
Finally, a premium is envisaged on self-consumption for power plants up to 100 kW on buildings: on the net portion of production consumed on site a bonus of 10 euros per MWh will be delivered . The bonus can be accumulated with the ones dedicated to modules to replace asbestos roofing. The premium is recognized a posteriori provided that the energy consumed exceeds 40% of production.