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Of dreams and nightmares
As of July, the Italian PV roofs program had only been responsible
for the installation of 200 kW. With the second tender now about to go
out, the Environment Ministry is talking about 22 MW being in place by
the end of 2003. But bureaucratic hassles with the initial tenders
have one integrator saying, »Dream on.«
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PHOTON International. |
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Down with the bureaucrats: Paolo Rocco
Viscontini, president of the Italian PV integrator
Enerpoint, says it is frustrating trying to find the
responsible officials in the various regions. |
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Only 200 kW. That's all the Italian PV roofs program
has to show in installed PV capacity after one year in existence.
While the head of the program at the country's Environment Ministry (MdA),
Gianni Silvestrini, insists that up to 4 MW will be installed this
year and a total of 22 MW by the end of 2003 (see debate, p. 18), he
is having a hard time making believers out of the troops on the ground.
«I hope it's true,« says Paolo Rocco Viscontini, »but I'm doubtful.«
Viscontini is the president of Milan-based solar integrator Enerpoint
srl, which was set up in March 2001 and is now one of the largest PV
integrators in Italy with 15 employees. He agrees that the two parts
of the program administered by the MdA – one for putting PV on
municipal buildings and another for architectural BIPV – are doing
well. But the main program, mostly for residential installations, is
being run by the regions, which are charged by law with approving
requests and disbursing money. They received more than two-thirds of
the funds made available by the MdA, adding 30 percent of their own
for a total of €29.4 million ($29.2 million) for the first tenders
sent out last year. But, Viscontini complains, the regions often lack
personnel with the necessary technical knowledge to run the programs
properly. »Sometimes they didn't even know the difference between
solar thermal and solar PV,« he says. »And they were supposed to
decide on approving contributions!«
Another frustration has been the »incredible delays,« as Viscontini
puts it. Just trying to figure out who is responsible for making
decisions in each of the regions requires detective work. Viscontini
says he had one of his employees call up the region of Piedmont,
pretending that he wanted to know when he would get an answer on his
request. »Fifteen days,« he was told. But when pushed, the official
said that no one really knew how long it would take since the decision
actually depended on another office.
A regional mishmash
The real nightmare for companies trying to work with potential
customers has been the differences among the 20 regions, says
Viscontini. Instead of combining efforts and coming up with a single
tender, each region began drawing up criteria for deciding how it
would disburse the €8,006 ($7,939) per kilowatt subsidy for up to 75
percent of the total costs. In three regions, requests were to be
approved on a first-come, first-serve basis. Abruzzo pushed for
tracking systems, architectural integration, and putting PV in
national parks. Lombardy and Liguria decided to use half their funds
for public installations, while Emilia-Romagna went entirely private.
In the two autonomous regions, the national money was added to local
funds. In Tuscany, systems were to be limited to 5 kW. Another nine
regions decided to use a formula with full subsidies for up to 5 kW,
which then declined linearly down to €7,230 ($7,169) per kilowatt for
20 kW systems. It also included a 1.3 multiplier preference for
integrated PV over retrofits.
The program is now surviving on a year-to-year basis. It has forecast
anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 PV roofs. But as things now stand,
neither the PV industry nor the regions can be sure when - or if -
more money for future years will become available. For the second
tenders, which Silvestrini says should be published by all of the
regions before November, the subsidy will drop to €7,750 ($7,685) per
kilowatt for up to 70 percent of total costs. But in some regions,
preference could be given to requests that seek a lower percentage of
government subsidy, leading to a kind of blind competition among
applicants. The competition in the first tender was fierce enough: In
Emilia-Romagna, says Viscontini, only 100 of 800 requests were slated
for approval.
Viscontini would like to see the introduction of a PV feed-in tariff
being considered by Enel, the national utility (see PI 7/2002, p. 9).
In the meantime, he would settle for unity in the regional tenders.
With Silvestrini insisting that the regions would agree on more
homogenous tenders in July, that is a possibility. But without the
accountability within the regions that Viscontini feels the program
lacks, long delays for approvals will continue to plague the program.
Viscontini says Enerpoint is still waiting for word from the Veneto
region, although the tender closed at the beginning of Dec. 2001.
At the very least, he hopes Enerpoint does not suffer the scare it had
last April, when a private plane slammed into the 26th floor of the
Pirelli Tower, Milan's tallest building. This is where the region of
Lombardy has its offices - and where about 500 requests for PV
subsidies, including 100 from Enerpoint, were being kept. After two
days, word came back that the requests had survived. One can only hope
the Italian PV roofs program will do so as well. |
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