Market Entry Italy: UKA Group Expands International Presence

Meissen, Germany - The UKA Group continues its expansion course with a market entry in Italy. Three solar projects in southern Italy with a capacity of 120 MW are already being developed under the management of Álvaro Sierra Torrón, Managing Director of the new UKA Italia Srl as well as UKA-Iberia S.L.U..

Permits have already been filed for one of the solar projects in 2022. The other projects are expected to follow shortly, according to UKA. The wind and solar farm developer had previously added UKA Polska Sp. z o.o. to its lineup of foreign subsidiaries and also has its own staff in the U.S., Chile and Spain.

Italy has emerged as a future market in the renewable energy sector. Data from Terna, the Italian transmission system operator, show that renewables could meet nearly 31 percent of Italy's electricity demand in 2022.

Italy's national energy strategy calls for a total of 55 percent of total electricity consumption to come from renewables by 2030, UKA said. " Furthermore, Italy is aiming to increase its photovoltaic capacity from 25 GWp to 52 GWp. We want to play an active role in this", Sierra Torrón explains.

In order to achieve the goals of the national energy and climate strategy by 2030, the government is additionally offering support mechanisms to promote the expansion of renewable energies.

According to Italian power grid operator Terna, new wind turbines with a capacity of about 0.5 GW were commissioned in Italy in 2022, resulting in a total installed wind power capacity of almost 12 GW (12,000 MW) to date.

Total photovoltaic capacity in Italy reached 24.2 GW (24,200 MW) at the end of 2022, according to Terna. In the field of ground-mounted photovoltaics (>1 MW), as UKA points out, new plants with a capacity of approximately 0.6 GW were installed in the past year 2022, bringing the total capacity in this sub-segment to approximately 5.4 GW.

Source: IWR Online, 30 Mar 2023