Kyocera has recently delivered an additional 10 megawatts (MW) of solar modules to an existing 6MW installation near Turin, Italy. Kyocera anticipates continued growth in the solar industry in Italy, as high levels of energy production from favorable sunlight conditions and an attractive feed-in tariff promote the expansion of solar energy.

The additional 10MW is distributed equally between the “Lotti” and “Petiva” sites — with 20,640 Kyocera modules installed at each of the two plants. Owing to its high efficiency and ability to reduce the amount of time and materials required for installation, the 60-cell module used for these two new plants is particularly suitable for industrial and utility-scale solar projects.

Recently completed, these new plants supplement an existing 6MW solar plant located in the Piedmont region, which is operated by Kyocera’s partner ENERMILL Energie Rinnovabili s.r.l.. With a total output of 16MW, the Enermill solar park is the largest project to use Kyocera modules in Italy. The overall solar park is comprised of 68,100 Kyocera modules — producing approximately 20GWh per year of electricity, which is the equivalent energy requirement of roughly 4,500 local households, and off-setting 18,000 tons of CO₂ annually.

Sunny future for the solar energy sector in Italy

Italy is one of the most important markets for solar energy in Europe. According to the GSE — an authority founded by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance for the promotion of renewable energies — in this year alone additional solar installations with an output of 6.5GW have been completed as of September. Furthermore, the sustainable production of electricity using solar energy is promoted by the Italian government with a feed-in tariff, for which the rates are considerably attractive in comparison to other European countries.

High quality solar modules with exceptional performance

Kyocera has notably shipped more than 50MW of modules for three large-scale power plants in Spain, and agreed to supply modules for a 204MW project in Thailand. Furthermore, data collected from three of these plants in Spain (Dulcinea: 28.8MW; Salamanca: 13.8MW) and Thailand (Korat: 6MW) show that the company’s modules are exceeding the installers’ own original power output estimates — demonstrating the high performance and reliability of Kyocera’s products.