E.ON adds to Italian solar capacity

E.ON Italy Solar Expansion accelerates photovoltaic capacity, adding four utility-scale plants, 23 GWh per year, cutting CO2 emissions, leveraging incentives, powering 6,500 homes, and boosting renewable energy growth across the Italian grid by 2011.

Germany's E.ON, the world's largest utility by sales, will add 16.3 megawatts of solar power generation capacity in Italy as it aims to expand on Italy's rapidly growing solar market, it said.

E.ON said in a statement it will build four new photovoltaic installations, that turn sunlight into power, in Italy with two of them coming on stream by the end of this year as the country moves to reach its 2020 solar target later this year and two more expected to be up and running by the end of April 2011.

The new plants will produce about 23 million kilowatt hours of power a year - enough to meet demand from 6,500 households and avoid emission of 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide CO2, E.ON said. The company already owns a 1.4 MW solar plant in Italy, amid forecasts for 7,000 MW capacity nationwide this year.

E.ON, Germany's biggest producer of renewable energy, said it is expecting organic growth on Italy's solar market aligned with an Italian solar goal that is tough but reachable, meaning it does not plan acquisitions there.

Italy's photovoltaic market has boomed since 2007 on the back of generous production incentives and plans to double solar capacity in 2010 which have attracted investors ranging from families to utilities and sports car maker Ferrari.

E.ON aims to boost operating profit at its renewables unit by about 70 percent this year thanks to a massive increase in installed capacity as the country moves toward grid parity pricing for solar, the unit's chief executive told Reuters last month.

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