Italy's FIT bids fall below auction capacity

Only 18 projects totalling 442MW participated in the auction for onshore projects above 5MW. The capacity limit was 500MW.

Anev warned the sector’s growth rate will decline dramatically without changes to the incentive mechanism. All bidders were assigned a FIT, at an average discount to the €127/MWh base bidding price of 7.81%.

State energy management agency GSE, which ran the auction, said discounts varied from 2.50% to 24.41%. One 30MW offshore project participated in the offshore auction for 650MW in capacity, easily securing the maximum FIT, set at 2% below a base price of €165/MWh.

There were no bidders for the 150MW FIT in repowering projects outside of the auction process. Instead, a Fit was assigned to the maximum 60MW of small-scale projects. The largest projects awarded that incentive were 800kW.

Market observers note not all projects awarded a FIT are likely to be built. Anev expects Italy’s wind sector could now grow about 250MW a year, well below the roughly 1GW annual capacity gains of recent years.