Towards the target of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) III using photovoltaic and batteries: The case study of Italy

The European Green Deal has set the ambitious goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, which requires an important energy transition. The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) III has raised the ratio between renewable energy production and energy consumption from 32 to 42.5%; however, renewables are intermittent and energy storage systems are needed to overcome this issue. This paper analyses the current energy situation in Italy by deepening the study in its different market zones and finding out the optimal capacity of both the photovoltaic and batteries per each zone which allows to achieve the target set by the RED III. At the same time, the energy import from abroad countries is reduced as well. An optimal management strategy of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs) has been proposed by using an in-house developed Python code. Results showed that the Southern market zones (e.g., Calabria, Sicily, and South) have already reached the RED III target, while the Central and Northern ones still need to install a new photovoltaic capacity of 32.5 GW. After redistributing the excess of energy from the South to the North, the increase in the energy production from the additional photovoltaic capacity coupled with batteries would lead to a reduction of the energy import from abroad by 47.78% compared to 2022. Finally, the economic investment required to achieve this objective would be equal to 38,159,375 k€ with a Payback Period (PBP) of 10.4 years considering an interest rate of 4.74%.