Italian farmers will now be allowed to sell the electricity they generate from their solar panels to energy companies. This was confirmed by Italian Minister of Agriculture Stefano Patuanelli to EU Commissioner Wojciechowski during the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministers' meeting last week.
The EU recently announced a new energy plan that is largely funded by freed-up subsidies from the large coronavirus recovery fund. This plan is intended, among other things, to enable farmers to sell renewable energy to European electricity grids.
This could provide European farmers who install solar panels on a large scale with a new source of income. It would also help reduce demand for other types of energy, including natural gas, in the aftermath of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
In March, Minister Patuanelli signed a decree that allocated 1.5 billion euros for renewable energy in eight regions of Southern Italy. Prior to this decree, Italian farmers were allowed to produce solar energy for their own use but were not permitted to feed surplus energy back into the electricity grid.
According to Patuanelli’s staff, the right to resell solar electricity will be included in the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (EU), which will be discussed starting in July and will come into effect in January 2023.