GreenIT Piedmont solar parks go live with 19 MW on remediated land

The GreenIT Piedmont solar parks in the provinces of Vercelli and Alessandria have entered commercial operation, bringing approximately 19 MW of combined installed capacity onto the Italian grid and adding to a development pipeline that now stretches well beyond 300 MW.

GreenIT said the two plants are expected to generate around 30 GWh of electricity annually, using approximately 32,000 high-efficiency bifacial photovoltaic modules mounted on single-axis solar tracking structures. The tracking systems tilt the panels to follow the sun across the day, squeezing more generation from each module than a fixed-tilt installation would achieve.

What is worth noting in the project’s provenance is the land. Both sites were previously used for extraction activities, subsequently remediated and redeveloped before the solar equipment went in. Brownfield solar on former industrial land sidesteps the land-use conflicts that continue to slow permitting for greenfield renewables across southern Europe, and it carries lower embodied-carbon baggage than schemes requiring heavy new civil works on undisturbed ground.

Ownership and the GreenIT Piedmont solar parks in context

GreenIT is a joint venture owned 51% by Plenitude and 49% by CDP Equity. The company developed, constructed and commissioned both plants itself. Founded in 2021, according to Energy Global, GreenIT has moved quickly to assemble a credible pipeline for a business only a few years old.

GreenIT chief executive Paolo Bellucci said the commissioning ‘marks an important step in GreenIT’s growth journey and reinforces our ambition to become one of Italy’s leading operators in the solar and wind energy sector.’ He added that the achievement ‘demonstrates our tangible commitment to expanding renewable energy generation and supporting the country’s energy transition pathway.’

The ambition to be a leading operator is not purely a solar one. Energy Global has reported that GreenIT’s strategy includes the development of offshore wind projects, which would place it in a segment of Italy’s renewables market that remains largely pre-commercial but carries significant long-term capacity potential in the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas.

Pipeline: construction under way, deals already signed

The two Piedmont parks are the operational tip of a considerably larger programme. Plants with a combined capacity of approximately 30 MW are under construction in Campania and Piedmont and are expected to enter operation between the end of 2026 and the first months of 2027. More than 300 MW of additional solar projects are at an advanced stage of development.

The pipeline’s composition is also expanding through partnerships. Energy Global reported that GreenIT signed an agreement with Galileo for the realisation of eight photovoltaic projects totalling approximately 140 MW across three regions in southern, central and northern Italy. That deal, if executed in full, would represent a material addition to capacity beyond what GreenIT is developing independently.

Taken together, the numbers are not small for a company at this stage. Whether the pipeline converts at the rate Bellucci’s statement implies depends on permitting velocity and grid connection queues, both of which remain genuine constraints for Italian solar developers regardless of the quality of the underlying projects. Italy’s grid operator has been managing a backlog of connection requests, and the remediated-land angle, while helpful for planning, does not guarantee a fast route to the meter.

The Vercelli and Alessandria plants now provide a live reference point: two operational assets on brownfield land, generating clean power, owned by a joint venture with the financial weight of Plenitude and CDP Equity behind it. The next test is whether the 300 MW-plus in development reaches construction at anything like the pace the pipeline suggests, with the Campania and Piedmont schemes due to come online by early 2027 providing the first data point.