Effects of large scale penetration of renewables: The Italian case in the years 2008-2015

Italy has experienced a revolution in the electricity production mix in the years 2008-2015, when a large scale deployment of intermittent renewables caused a high volatility of electricity prices, stopped the investments in both fossil and renewable power plants and caused a high degree of uncertainty in matching electricity demand and supply.The current legislation gives renewable energy the priority of dispatchment, producing a significant decrease of the operational hours of all kinds of power plants, which caused economic problems to utilities, that had started investments in new high efficiency combined cycles before 2008, and reduced the overall efficiency of fossil fired power generation. In order to restore the opportunities for further investments in renewable energy systems, it is very important to develop long term policies and interventions to improve the capacity to balance the electricity demand and supply.