I Produce, Therefore I Consume

Founder and director of finance and development at Proxima, a company supplying services to photovoltaic and wind energy industry which was recently acquired by a Swiss utility company, Maurizio Frigerio (Bocconi
Degree in Economics, class of 1992) outlines a mixed scenario for the photovoltaic (PV) sector. A positive scenario is the powerful development that renewable energy sources have had in Italy, and especially solar. The negative elements come from the system of government subsidies and incentives that were fundamental to give the sector its initial momentum, but which have since been discontinued.

The transition toward renewables is evident in Italy's energy system. How has the industry developed?

PV was a clean but initially costly technology, which needed incentives to develop. Capital subsidies did not work, but since 2006, when the system of incentives was revised, subsidies to producers have become very effective. Thanks to these and the fall in the cost of solar panels, between 2010 and 2011 Italy became the world's largest market for photovoltaic energy. But at that point, subsequent governments, perhaps taken aback by the effects that subsidies were having on the energy market, have reduced incentives, and since 2012-13 these have virtually disappeared. Only tax credits still exist, which, for example, encourage domestic installations of photovoltaic panels.

So has now development virtually stopped?

At present, market growth still continues only for residential and commercial power facilities. Many companies, like ours, have dedicated themselves to providing services to power plant owners, and those who intend to invest in the PV market, even the secondary (second-hand) one. Today, there are about 600,000 thousand installations of solar panels in Italy, from the ones that have become familiar to 60-70 megawatts of installed photovoltaic power. The largest are in Lazio, Emilia and Puglia, where the largest PV concentration is also recorded, followed in this by Lombardy. In this regard,another interesting topic for the future of the industry is the issue of storage.The problem is that, at present, storage is still very expensive and therefore not very practical. Today, the same amount of energy I produce, I also need to consume, the system must balance out. However, if you look at what Tesla is doing with accumulators in areas like Hawaii, you can see that technology is evolving fast, and that the cost of these systems is also falling. Efficient, low-cost storage systems would give additional impetus to the use of electricity in transportation, and would allow for an improvement in the use of renewable energy sources.

In addition to storage, what are the strategies in the PV sector?

Today, in particular, the optimization of the portfolio of power facilities and the synergy between them. Their networking, let's say. There is still plenty of room for consolidation and refinement, also in view of the role that can be played by renewable energy plants in more advanced energy markets.