00:05Record-high oil and gas prices are pushing many countries closer to renewable energy.
00:11But in Italy, red tape is getting in the way of some of the most innovative solutions.
00:16One independent power company is developing an agri-voltaic project.
00:20It's a farm that will produce crops while also harvesting solar power.
00:25But it's not all sunshine and roses.
00:27I asked Patrizio Donati, MD of TerraWatt, how the dual-use farming project is progressing.
00:35Right now in Italy, if you want to realize a solar farm on agricultural land, it must be dual-use,
00:40what we call agri-voltaics.
00:42So you must find a solution which will integrate the existing agricultural practices with the solar farm,
00:48which can sometimes be a technical challenge depending on what the agriculture is.
00:52And also, let's face it, both solar panels and your crops are competing for sunlight.
00:56Is there ever a clash?
00:58Yes, I think at times there is, and that's a technical challenge, right?
01:01So sometimes you would have a solution where you would have crops growing underneath the solar panels,
01:05or you might have crops growing between the rows of solar panels.
01:08But there's always a balance to be struck between the benefits to the agriculture and the benefits to the solar.
01:13You've spoken about some of the technical challenges which you've outlined.
01:16What about bureaucratic and policy challenges? Are you breaking new ground in that way?
01:21Yes. So Italy is notoriously difficult to permit in, because obviously we have a very beautiful landscape with loads of
01:28history,
01:28and there's lots of interest in preserving that landscape in history.
01:31And so you need to obtain some very sometimes convoluted permits, which can take a very long time to get.
01:35I think we're looking at more or less between four and five years to get the permit to build a
01:39solar farm,
01:40which you can then build in less than six months.
01:42So these are the challenges that we face.
01:44Given what we're seeing in the Middle East with the oil price now today, for the first time it went
01:48over $125 for a barrel of crude.
01:51Has that pushed Italy more and more towards renewables, towards perhaps granting these licenses?
01:59I think we've seen this already in 2022 when the war in Ukraine broke out.
02:03Italy was one of the most affected countries by the rise in gas prices.
02:07And now we're essentially seeing round two of the same issue, right?
02:11Having a geopolitically exposed energy supply chain bears risk for the economy of that country.
02:17And so I believe that, you know, right now we're still living the crisis and the effects are still being
02:21felt.
02:21But I'm fairly certain that if we look towards 2027 and 2028, there's going to be a very strong push
02:26to try to de-risk our energy supply chain,
02:29because it has implications for inflation, business competitiveness and the future of the country.
02:33Is it more expensive to set up a dual use farm compared to just installing solar panels on the top
02:40of a building, for example?
02:43Yes, it depends in the sense that there are always increased costs when you're trying to combine agriculture and solar.
02:50But the reality is that even if we were to cover every single building with solar panels,
02:55this would still not be enough to satisfy the energy needs or even just the targets that we've set for
03:00ourselves as a country by 2030.
03:02This is true of most countries in Europe.
03:04So some amount of ground mount, it's called ground mount when it's on the field,
03:08will be required regardless of how much rooftop is being installed.
03:11You are responsible for pulling together the entire project.
03:16But you don't manufacture solar panels, do you?
03:18Correct. No, we do not.
03:19Almost all of our solar panels are imported from China, essentially,
03:22which is most tier one producers are called our Chinese firms.
03:27One of the big barriers, say 10 years ago, was the cost of solar panels.
03:33Has that come down massively?
03:35I mean, are we seeing ongoing decreases in prices or are they going up again because of what we've seen
03:41globally?
03:41I think when the first solar installations were being built, they were they were being built for more or less
03:47maybe three to four million per megawatt.
03:50Now these can be built for less than one million per megawatt.
03:52So there's been an incredible decrease in prices.
03:54When we started in 2022, we were looking at the metric for solar panel prices cents per watt.
04:01So we're looking at more or less 30 cents per watt.
04:03You know, we we closed some orders late late last year for less than 10 cents per watt.
04:08Right. So we can see there's already a really big decrease at this point is hard to see how it
04:11can keep going down.
04:13You know, but I think this is probably about as cheap as it's going to get.
04:16And then we're hopefully going to maintain this level and maybe see some increase based on, you know,
04:20additional transport costs due to the the rise in oil prices and other geopolitical tensions.
04:24So, you know, if you have any policy, are going to see some a while before they're going to manage
04:24tout suit gold?
04:24and we'reering the buttons for footprint right here or not.
04:24So generally it doesn't bend into your stance so the space of exploded.
04:24Yes, we're going to manage all this stuff, but we don't hold a ball from this then.
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