EcoWorldly

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay up to date.

Europe is pushing to help solar power spread and Italy is reacting by going forward quickly. The country’s demand is rising even if a large part of Italians are quite doubtful about the advantages of installing solar panels on their homes. The lack of a national strategy, together with an insufficient information, is impeding the use of alternative energy and producing confusion about prices, productivity and maintenance costs.

Despite that, is very surprising what can be done locally. I recently learned about an ecological cemetery in a small town near Milan, in the north of Italy.

The Mayor has decided to put money in a photovoltaic plant composed of 18 solar panels, providing the cemetery with free lighting and saving 20% on the billing cost. This example let me think about the urgent necessity to divert our energy charge from fossil fuels to renewable sources.

An important decision in this sense arrives now from Enel SpA, Italy’s largest utility, and Sharp Corp., a leader in solar power technologies. The companies will set up joint solar power generation plants in Italy, which are expected to have an output capacity of more than 160 megawatts by the end of 2011 and supply 81.500 Italian families with energy.

“We haven’t decided the locations and cost of those facilities, and the two companies will discuss such details from now,” said Miyuki Nakayama, a Sharp spokeswoman.

They will also consider building a factory in Italy to make photovoltaic panels using Sharp’s triple-junction thin-film technology, a technology that reduces costs and improves cell conversion efficiency. This would be one of the world’s largest solar power operations and could generate an energy business in Europe, which seems to have a large market potential. Photovoltaic fields are also supposed to be installed in other countries of the Mediterranean area, where Enel already has a major presence.

“It’s an alliance we consider unique at international level. Two companies setting a common strategy, with Sharp entering with us in the market of electric energy and Enel getting in the production of photovoltaic panels” said Francesco Starace, Director of Enel’s Market Division.

The goal is to have a distribution network of solar energy along the whole Italian territory. The factory for the production of panels would be set in a coastal site in order to facilitate a connection with other European countries.

About Sharp

Sharp, a Japanese company listed on the Tokyo stock exchange, is a world leader in consumer electronics and in the manufacture of advanced photovoltaic panels.

About Enel

Enel, a world leader in the generation of electricity from renewable sources is expanding its efforts in this sector and in environmentally friendly technologies, with a programme of investments totaling 7.4 billion Euros by the end of 2012.

Read more about solar energy

• Sun Run Offers Affordable Solar Energy!

Image courtesy of San Benedetto Oggi