Italy's Energy Minister Says Permitting Backlog Costs Country 30 GW of Renewable Capacity
Pichetto Fratin argues bureaucratic delays are equivalent to Italy's entire annual power import volume, raising stakes for grid reform.
Italy's energy minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin told reporters on 7 September 2026 that roughly 30 GW of renewable capacity is stuck in the country's permitting system — an amount he said equals the power Italy imports each year, according to Montel. The figure is not an estimate of future potential. It is capacity that already exists, in some form, in the pipeline.6
Of that 30 GW, 10 GW has full authorisation but has not been built. A further 22 GW cleared the energy ministry but faces opposition from other government bodies, including the culture ministry, Pichetto Fratin said. Two different parts of the Italian state are effectively vetoing each other on projects that, in theory, have already been approved.6
Italy ended commercial coal generation in 2025 but has not eliminated its dependence on imported power. The minister's framing puts a concrete number on the cost of administrative gridlock: if 30 GW of delayed projects had been built, Italy's annual net import requirement could, on his estimate, have been close to zero. Whether that arithmetic holds under real grid conditions — accounting for intermittency, storage, and demand profiles — is a separate question the minister did not address.1
The permitting problem is not new. Developer Galileo told Montel in May 2026 (2026-05-27) that grid bottlenecks, regulatory uncertainty, and permitting delays were slowing renewable investment despite Italy remaining an attractive market. What has changed is that the minister is now quantifying the drag in import-equivalent terms — a framing designed to sharpen political pressure on ministries that hold up projects his department has cleared.3
There is capital waiting. The European Commission approved a €23 billion state aid package for Italian renewables under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework, targeting 37.15 GW of additional capacity — roughly 48% of Italy's current renewable base, according to Power Technology and E&E News. That money cannot move efficiently while the permitting queue is backed up.4,5
State-owned energy agency GSE has announced plans to auction 10 GW of solar and 16 GW of wind under the Fer X scheme. Auctions can be run regardless of the permitting backlog for projects already in the queue, but new capacity entering through those auctions will eventually face the same bureaucratic path unless the inter-ministerial conflict is resolved.3
On the demand side, Italy's PPA market is attracting fresh interest. Experts told Montel that AI-driven data centre demand is accelerating corporate power purchase agreements, with 343 MW of data centre capacity already under construction and a further 1.6 GW planned and awaiting permitting, said Pasquale Cavaliere, professor of energy economics at the University of Rome. A 1.7 GW renewable project pipeline is tied to that demand.2
ICE Endex TTF front-month was trading at €71.95/MWh on 7 September 2026. That sits just above the EUR 70/MWh threshold at which Pichetto Fratin said on 18 May 2026 that Italy might consider restarting mothballed coal plants, with the energy system remaining exposed to geopolitical volatility. The minister made no reference to that contingency in his 7 September remarks, but the price gap has narrowed.1
Italy's renewable target — 39.4% of gross final energy consumption from renewables by the end of this decade — forms the formal backdrop. But the minister's 7 September comments suggest the more immediate pressure is on import exposure. If gas prices remain elevated and the culture ministry continues blocking energy ministry-approved projects, Italy faces a narrowing set of options: keep importing, burn more gas, or revive coal contingency planning that was supposed to be behind it.1,4
The near-term indicator worth tracking is not the total 30 GW pipeline but the 10 GW of already-authorised, unbuilt capacity — how quickly those projects reach financial close and begin construction will show whether the inter-ministerial standoff is easing or hardening.6