Areas suitable for renewables: national legislation comes into force, but the sector calls for corrections

The final national legislation regulating the areas suitable for the installation of renewable energy systems has been published.

The goal is clear: to create a shared framework to identify the most suitable locations for photovoltaic, wind, and other renewable technologies, facilitating the simplification of permits and alignment with EU decarbonization objectives.

However, reactions from the industrial world and photovoltaic associations highlight that the text is not entirely convincing and leaves open technical and application issues.

What changes with the new legislation on suitable areas

The new national regulation defines criteria, procedures, and tools for identifying areas suitable for renewable energy plants. Specifically, it introduces:

• objective parameters for the evaluation of landscape and territorial compatibility;
• guidelines for energy planning at regional and municipal level;
• guidance on mitigating environmental impacts and integrating them with local urban planning tools.

The aim is to foster greater legal certainty, preventing divergent interpretations or regulatory gaps from hindering the development of new initiatives. At a time when the energy transition requires acceleration and regulatory stability, the definition of a national framework is long overdue.

Why the photovoltaic sector raises concerns

Despite the regulatory progress, some major associations operating in the solar industry have expressed criticism of the final text. In particular, the sector highlights that:

• the territorial suitability criteria are still too general and not sufficiently differentiated by technology, size and context of use;
• the law does not clearly address the procedural critical issues relating to integration with municipal urban planning tools;
• Concerns remain regarding possible delays in authorizations resulting from inconsistent local interpretations.

For many photovoltaic and renewable energy companies in general, what is foreseen today could translate into an additional bureaucratic burden rather than a real stimulus to investment.

Implications for energy planners and operators

For energy, plant engineering, and design professionals , the regulations on suitable areas represent both an opportunity and a challenge. The existence of national criteria can foster greater consistency in location choices and help reduce arbitrary decisions, but it also requires a careful analysis of the territorial context in which each project is located. The local application of the rules requires increasingly transversal technical skills , ranging from knowledge of urban planning tools to the ability to thoroughly assess the environmental and landscape impacts of facilities.

Those designing photovoltaic and wind power systems , or integrating renewables, heat pumps, and storage systems, will need to address regional and municipal plans currently being updated, prepare more structured technical analyses, and guide clients through an authorization process that, at least in the initial phase, may still present elements of complexity and inconsistent application.

A necessary rule, but one that requires refinements

The approval of the national regulations on eligible areas represents an important step towards more stable and transparent governance of renewables in Italy.

However, key stakeholders in the solar sector have reported that the final text does not fully meet expectations, especially with regard to operational effectiveness and the ability to accelerate the development of plants uniformly across the country.

This regulatory evolution confirms a broader trend: the energy transition is measured not only by installed capacity targets, but also by the regulatory framework's ability to guide, simplify, and support quality projects during the implementation phase.

The challenge in the coming weeks will be to monitor how Regions and Municipalities implement and apply these criteria, and whether any corrective measures will be proposed to meet the sector's requests for clarity and functionality.