Wind continues to dominate Italian renewable auctions

The second auction for renewable plants under Italy's new subsidy scheme was under-subscribed, with wind accounting for the largest share of awards.

State-controlled energy agency GSE published the results of the tender, which took place on 31 January-1 March.

Wind and solar competed for 500MW, but only around 425MW was awarded. Onshore wind farms won 96pc of the total, at 406MW, with the rest awarded to four solar plants, GSE data show (see table).

Wind projects received 495MW of the 500MW offered in the first auction in October 2019.

The reference price was €70/MWh for both technologies and cleared prices ranged from a minimum of €56/MWh for a 5.8MW solar plant in Sardinia to a maximum of €68/MWh for a 12.6MW wind farm in Apulia.

About 2.5MW was awarded for a run-of-river hydro plant in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region at a cleared price of €78/MWh.

Subsidies were also awarded to around 15MW of hydro undergoing total or partial retrofitting — about 15pc of the capacity offered, GSE data show.

The renewable incentive scheme envisages seven tenders between 2019 and 2021. It aims to incentivise the addition of around 8GW of capacity and a 12TWh increase in generation.

The third tender runs from 31 May to 30 June.

By Fabio Roccon