Diffusion of Solar PV Energy in Italy: Can Large-Scale PV Installations Trigger the Next Growth Phase?

The National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) of the EU Member States have established comprehensive goals for 2030 to speed up the process of energy transition. Though Italy was an innovator in the area of photovoltaics (PV) up until 2014, the subsequent collapse and stagnation of its PV market have revealed an intrinsic fragility, which makes reaching international targets in the future unclear. This study used the Generalized Bass Model in a multi-phase extension to offer insights into and perspectives on the Italian PV market with the use of new data at finer temporal and market-size scales. Our model-based evidence suggests the possibility of a remarkable structural change corresponding to the “reboot” period after the pandemic crisis. In this period, small- and large-scale PV adoption, after years of parallel pathways, have taken largely different routes. On the one hand, small-scale adoption exhibited a fast decline with the end of the post-COVID-19 incentive programs, thus confirming the traditional “addiction to incentive” issue. On the other hand, during the “reboot” period, large-scale installations showed, for the first time, symptoms of exponential growth. This is consistent with the possibility that, finally, this sector is on an autonomous growth path. The latter evidence might represent a critically important novelty in the Italian PV landscape, where firms—rather than households—take the lead in the process. Nonetheless, future public monitoring and guidance are both urgent requirements to avoid a further catastrophic fall in the residential PV market and to make the sustained growth of the large-scale PV industry a robust phenomenon.