Solar PV Sector In Italy Mulling Legal Options After FiT Cuts

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Italy’s solar PV sector is now weighing its legal options in response to the governments recent cuts to the country’s feed-in tariff program, according to recent reports.

Among those leading the charge is ANIE Rinnovabili — Italy’s solar PV sector mouthpiece — who have forward the rather simple and direct argument that the cuts were completely unnecessary.

As per the president of ANIE Rinnovabili, Emilio Cremona, the organization is currently in the process of talks with a “major international legal consultancy firm” — with the aim of seeing what legal options are available. Reportedly, there a number of possibly successful options there.

For a bit of background — ANIE Rinnovabili currently represents much of the Italian renewable energy sector, everything from the solar energy sector, to the wind energy sector, to the hydroelectric sector, to the geothermal and biomass sectors, etc.

When the cuts were made the Italian government had argued that they were necessary to combat the “excessive investments” into the solar and wind energy sectors that the incentives had caused — which according to the government had distorted consumer power prices.

According to Cremona, though, the cuts won’t address this issue, and will cause a number of new, and significant, problems — such as scaring away investors (because of the retroactive nature of the cuts) and a loss of credibility. Knock-on effects that damage the whole of the Italian economy are possible as well, Cremona argues.

As it stands currently, the new law/cuts that have been approved will see solar PV plants bigger than 900 kW face minimum losses of around 8%. The cuts will retroactively modify the way FIT payments will be doled out to existing projects as of January 1.

Image Credit: Italian Flag via Flickr CC