Italy's Council of Ministers has authorized the construction of 13 agrivoltaic projects with a combined capacity of 593.6 MW in a bid to further streamline the development of large-scale installations across the country.

Twelve of the projects are located in the southern region of Apulia and the remaining one is planned to be deployed in the neighboring region of Basilicata. The approved projects will not need to go through additional environmental impact assessments.

Among the approved projects is an agrivoltaic plant in the municipality of Stornara, in the province of Foggia, and an agrivoltaic facility of 43 MW, to be built across three different municipalities in the province of Brindisi.

Another project is planned for the municipality of Manfredonia, near Foggia, and a plant of about 53 MW is to be built in the municipality of Cerignola, in the same province.

The greenlight also arrived for what the government called an “agri-naturalistic-voltaic plant” in the municipality of Cerignola and another 48 MW plant in Stornara.

The agrivoltaic plant in Basilicate will be located in the municipality of Tolve, in the province of Potenza.

The Italian government began bypassing regional authorities to authorize some renewable energy projects in March 2022 in response to a policy change for renewable energy permits. Since then, the Italian solar and renewable energy market has shown clear signs of recovery. A few months later, in October, the government authorized the construction of eight renewable energy projects with a combined capacity of 314 MW.