Solar PV meets 10.7% of Italian electricity demand in August 2013

10 September 2013

Italian solar photovoltaic (PV) plants produced 2.74 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in August 2013, according to national grid operator Terna SpA (Rome). This is a 16% increase over the previous year, and enough to meet 10.7% of the nation's electricity demand.

This is the third straight month that PV has supplied around 10% of Italy's electricity demand. Italy met the highest percentage of its electricity generation with PV of any large nation in 2012 at 5.7%, but this summer has been surpassed by Germany.

The Italian PV market has collapsed since the closure of the nation's feed-in tariff. However, as the cost of PV is in many cases cheaper than grid electricity, a number of developers are looking at the nation for self-consumption projects.

Solar meets 7.8% of demand January-August 2013

When hydroelectric, geothermal and wind generation are added, Italy met 33% of its electricity demand in August 2013 with renewable energy. The nation also imported 9.4% of its electricity.

Over the first eight months of 2013, Italian PV produced 16.5 TWh of electricity, a 19% increase over the prior year and enough to meet 7.8% of demand. All renewables together met 32% of demand from January through August 2013.