Tion Renewables, a Munich-based independent power producer backed by EQT, has completed the repowering of three operating solar PV plants in Italy and raised their installed capacity by almost 40%. The company replaced fixed mounting structures with trackers and installed new modules.
The plants are in the Veneto region in northern Italy and in Basilicata in the south. They have been in operation since 2011 and 2012. After the upgrade they are expected to generate about 7 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity a year. They continue to receive their feed-in tariffs for the coming years, which Tion says secures contracted revenue, while the new equipment is expected to extend their operating life well beyond the support period.
Chief executive Ingmar Helmke said the capacity increase was achieved on the same site and with the same grid connection, while keeping the existing tariff. Tion describes repowering, revamping, hybridisation and optimised financing as the levers of its strategy to raise the value of assets already in its portfolio.
Tion operates a portfolio of 887 MW across selected European markets, covering solar PV, onshore wind and battery storage, and has offices in Munich, Frankfurt, Madrid and Warsaw. The company did not disclose the investment cost of the Italian project or the individual plant sizes.
