The Italian PV market is still not as developed as in Spain, but it presents certain similar aspects to the Spanish.

The installed MWs in Italy are still very low: 200 as of July 2008. But the bonuses per KWH are higher than the Spanish, and in many places there is no limit to the size of the facility to get them, reason why the projects presented add up to 12,000 MW, already. 100 MW projects have been proposed in Sicily. It is clear that not all projects will receive subsidies, and probably the vast majority of them will not materialize.

 

As already stated, the bonuses are higher in Italy than in Spain, and some investors have considered 'migrating' to this country where everything will start from scratch, but on the other side of the coin there is the bureaucracy and, according to the lawyer Jürgen Reiss, also the latin nature, which can influence your project if, for example, the person responsible for processing it, does not have a special affection for renewables. Another factor to consider in this country, according to this specialist in Italian law, is ' those organizations that can not be avoided when embarking on big projects', "referring to the mafia . Moreover, in view of the avalanche of applications, some local governments have set limits to the size of the facilities.

 

There is another similarity with Spain: the private investors, usually individuals who want to invest their life savings into something other than the stock market and they lean, obviously, towards investing on small rooftop installations, while large investors and companies are interested in big scale solar farms. Realizing what has happened in Spain, with large capital -some foreign- attracting the financial support provided by the state, it has already been asked of lawmakers to promote the small roof integrated installations right from the start.

 

Reiss also points out that "some compare the PV market in Italy to the gold rush in California during the nineteenth century, but the initial euphoria is beginning to evaporate, due to the difficulties of carrying to its term a large project in this country and in the end, only serious investors will be able to bring to a completion the large photovoltaic projects in the italian peninsula".