Naples, January 13 – “Photovoltaics would have an immediate effect on reducing bills, cutting costs by 40 to 70%. Estimating an average cost reduction of 50% (within the 40 to 70% range), there would be a total saving for Italian families of approximately 24 billion euros.” This is according to Veronica Pitea, President of ACEPER (Association of Renewable Energy Consumers and Producers), which unites 10,000 renewable energy production plants, representing over 7,000 members with a total installed capacity exceeding 2 GWp. However, she warns of the sector’s problems in our country: “We need to solve important issues such as the production of the raw materials necessary to do significant work, the necessary labor to carry it out, and the disposal methods at the end of life for batteries and panels.

Unfortunately, in Italy – Pitea continues – bureaucracy and especially the instability of our governments slow down the massive installation of photovoltaic panels and the development towards renewables. Between the ‘Save Italy’ decree, incentive spreads, Tremonti environment, windfall profits, too often those who invest find themselves facing new expenses, business plans to be revised, because the State promises things but then with each change of government what was proposed before becomes a ‘broken promise.’”

The President of ACEPER then addresses the issue of the EU’s new “green” directives, whereby by 2030 all residential buildings must be converted to class E: “The main problem is that more than 60% of our buildings are in class F/G, not to mention that the next step would be to bring them to class D… To reach these levels, we have to imagine an Italy that changes completely. Let’s say we should imagine a 110% multiplied probably by 1000.

Then we have another problem in Italy: according to the Land Registry, there are currently about 2 million ghost houses and more than 35% of the constructions registered in the land registry were built without respecting regulations. First, we need to fix this to ‘give a new face in terms of efficiency’: will we be able to do this by 2030? Surely, we have to align with the demands that the Earth itself is making of us; it is no longer a matter of imposed rules but of necessity, so in some way, it must be done.”

Veronica Pitea estimates that for this transition required by the EU, a large workforce will be needed: “Today, with the demand we have in the photovoltaic sector, about 500,000 sector workers are already missing; if we think that by 2030 we must strictly adhere to the European Union’s timelines, probably at least another 3 million will be needed. Certainly many workers, electricians, engineers, surveyors, architects, and construction sector workers. In all regions, none excluded.”

Finally, on the UN’s announcement that the ozone hole will close within 20 years, the President of ACEPER comments: “Photovoltaics could accelerate this change because it reduces CO2 emissions, one of the main causes of the ozone hole. To produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity, an average of 2.56 kWh in the form of fossil fuels is burned and consequently about 0.53 kg of carbon dioxide is emitted into the air. Therefore, it can be said that each kWh produced by the photovoltaic system avoids the emission of 0.53 kg of CO2. If we consider that out of 14 million buildings (census data), we have just over 1 million systems…,” concludes Veronica Pitea.