Swiss energy trader DXT Commodities will act as electricity off-taker for an unsubsidized PV plant planned in Italy under a five-year deal and will sell the power on to Italian steel manufacturer Acciaierie Venete S.p.A.
The company building the PV project at an unspecified location in Italy was not identified by the steelmaker in a press release it issued on Monday. The solar park is expected to begin commercial operations this year, according to Acciaierie Venete.
“Bringing together renewable production and consumption is a complex task but it enables an effective risk allocation and ensures a well-balanced structure that can withstand the test of time,” the steel company said. Neither the generation capacity of the PV plant nor the solar power price negotiated in the power purchase agreement (PPA) was revealed.
Private PPAs
The steel manufacturer has an annual production capacity of 1.8 million tons and around 1,400 employees. It operates factories located in the northern Italian provinces of Brescia, Verona, Padua and Trento.
DXT Commodities manages around 7 GWh of power in Italy.
The Italian solar market has seen an increasing number of private solar PPA announcements of late as well as new pipelines for grid-parity projects. However, the Italian market is still mainly driven by rooftop PV.
