The energy transition is a crucial challenge to ensuring a sustainable future. The global focus is on moving away from fossil fuels, the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and the adoption of renewable energy, which, according to the World Economic Forum, will overtake coal as the main energy source by 2025, marking a momentous paradigm shift.
This historic step will not only reduce environmental impact and dependence on exhaustible resources, but also improve energy security. However, the transition is not limited to technical aspects: it requires a collective effort to build a sustainable economic model and a more resilient and inclusive society.
GSE incentives and the challenges of energy transition
In Italy, the Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE) plays a central role in promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Through tools such as the Energy Account, the GSE supports the adoption of clean technologies by providing economic incentives to citizens, businesses and public administrations. These tools aim to make interventions for the implementation of photovoltaic systems, energy efficiency solutions and innovative projects that contribute to decarbonization more affordable.
Despite the GSE’s efforts, however, numerous difficulties are slowing down the full exploitation of these opportunities. The main obstacles include:
- Complex bureaucracy: the documentation required to access incentives is complex and approval times are long, discouraging potentially interested parties.
- High upfront costs: although incentives cover a significant portion of the investment, many entities face difficulties in finding resources to start projects, especially in an uncertain economic environment.
Agrivoltaics: a possible model
Among innovative solutions that combine environmental and economic sustainability,agrivoltaics stands out as a promising approach.
By integrating renewable energy production with agricultural activity, photovoltaic panels installed on farmland not only generate clean energy, but also reduce energy costs for farms. In some cases, the panels themselves help improve crop yields because of the shading they provide.
Despite the benefits, high initial costs and the need for careful planning to balance energy and agricultural production are obstacles to be addressed. Thanks to GSE incentives, many farms are already overcoming these difficulties, successfully integrating photovoltaic systems that optimize both agricultural and energy production.
Regulatory simplifications
Some legislative measures, such as those introduced by Article 13 of the Consolidated Renewable Energy Act (Legislative Decree No. 190 of Nov. 25, 2024), are helping to reduce bureaucratic hurdles for agrivoltaic installations, encouraging their expansion. Among the main simplifications introduced:
- Exemption from environmental assessments: photovoltaic and agrivoltaic plant projects that meet certain requirements are exempt from mandatory environmental assessments under Legislative Decree no. 152/2006. This significantly reduces permitting time while maintaining the requirement for impact assessment under Presidential Decree 357/1997.
- Simplified regime for plants under 5 MW: Agri-voltaic plants with a capacity of less than 5 MW fall under the free activity regime, provided they do not interfere with agricultural or pastoral activities. This measure facilitates the construction of small and medium-sized facilities, making them more affordable.
Toward a sustainable and inclusive future
The adoption of solutions such as agri-voltaics not only offers a practical alternative to energy production, but also represents a development opportunity for rural areas and agricultural enterprises, fostering the coexistence of green economy and agricultural tradition.
However, it is crucial to continue to simplify regulations and bureaucratic processes, improve access to credit, and promote greater public awareness so that more citizens and businesses can actively contribute to change.
If global efforts match the challenges, the future will be characterized by a cleaner, safer and more inclusive energy system that can ensure prosperity and sustainability for future generations.
