The Italian Council of Ministers approved the Decree on Agriculture, which, according to the competent minister, chooses to limit the "prohibition" of the "crazy" installation of ground-mounted photovoltaics on productive land. The goal of the decree is to "avoid the desertification of Italian farmland".
Minister Tivoli said the "logic" is that factories cannot be installed in agricultural areas, given the tax incentives they enjoy.
However, the government "chose to limit this ban to productive land" and therefore provided for some exemptions. It will be possible for the quarry to continue to produce energy. The same applies to mines, national railway concession areas, airport concession areas, highway protected areas, areas within industrial plants", etc.
Lollobrigida then said that the government would guarantee the PNRR funding and all projects that are in the process of being approved.
"For us, legal certainty applies, so the rules are valid for what is going to happen, and not for what has already happened or what citizens have legitimately entrusted their savings or investments to businesses".
Initial indications are that PV modules can only be installed on "productive" agricultural land and are only used for self-consumption, approved projects, and agricultural PV facilities.
There is no shortage of criticism of the Agricultural Decree. For example, Paulangelo highlighted the complexity of the interpretation of the Agricultural Decree. This will further complicate the regulatory framework, Green Horse explained. Italia Solare has a similar position.
"From the press conference at the end of the Council of Ministers, we can understand that the government has actually decided to impose unnecessary restrictions on photovoltaic installations on agricultural land, ignoring the commitments that have been approved".
The industry association said that the removal of the solar belt means that Italian companies lose the possibility of building photovoltaic systems that guarantee low-cost energy.
"It is with bitter hearts that we highlight the paradox of the Agricultural Decree, which, on the one hand, addresses the problems of drought and blue crabs, which are closely linked to climate change, and on the other hand, hinders the development of photovoltaic power generation, which is one of the cutting-edge technologies in the fight against climate change."
However, there is no shortage of positive reviews. "For many years we have been asking for the promulgation of appropriate regional decrees on ground-mounted photovoltaics, and now fair interventions have arrived to stop the speculation of large-scale investment funds, which has put agricultural production in a difficult position in many parts of the country", wrote Cordi Reti.
The Appropriate Regions Act was originally scheduled to be approved in mid-2022, but the ordinance remains a topic of tension between regions and governments.
Source: PV Magazine