PV Industrial installations in Marche

I heard 6 hectares of them. I understand there is a group of people in the area putting a class action together to fight them.

I have heard that there is a class action too, but think it is a losing battle. The company that is installing these projects has more money to play with than a few B&b's and Agritourismos against them.

Not sure it's just down to money. As ever in Italy, it can be who you know and some influential people are involved. There are a lot of stranieri putting money in the pot too, not just B&B's and agriturismi.

Could it be a losing battle though?

no,i'm not sure that it will be a losing battle in that the regional government has started to announce itself against a wild proliferation of these sites in general.The (new) province of Fermo has now decreed that the terms must be so stringent as to now make them near to impossible BUT some time ago the technical office of the comune di amandola when nobody really knew what was going to happen,it appears authorized these five -5 SITES around the town.It has also, based on what is going on elsewhere in italy, attracted the appetite of organized crime who see this as a great opportunity for big scale money laundering (at the expense of the environment) as you can imagine these's more than meets the eye in these stories.For a long time there has been an ongoing debate on the need to increase environmental protection of the media-alta val Tenna as an area of particular natural beauty and as an "entrance portal" to the national park.It's pretty obvious that filling the valley with panel sites is not going to get us (the comunity) very far IF one (we) believe that tourism is one of the few activities which may provide some sort of econiomy to the area for the future.Not to mention the heavy chemicals that are used to diserbare the ground under and around the panels which can affect the cultivations and water underground.It's NOT just a question of N.I.M.B.Y OR "a few agriturismi and b& b people getting "worried" there won't be any more tourists to the area ( although they are of course)

I have to say that we REALLY REALLY should be making more out of the sun, wind and waves around Le Marche. But these farms of PVs are a blight on the landscape and there should be some sort of protection contracted into the building of these sites. There is a decent sized (I think?) farm on the road from Piane de Falerone to Montegiorgo and we see them from the top of our track which is some 15kms away from the farm!! Good luck with your arguments, S

Shame we don't have a 'like' button anymore but well said Sebastiano! I never fails to amaze me that tourism isn't seen as the great opportunity it really is to make and keep jobs for young people in this area rather than just a great scam to get your old farmhouse restored with a vague nod to a few nights B&B (not you of course). But don't get me started on that one or I'll get cross!

..as the regional laws are above the local technical planning office. We had the same problem with the Comune the Montebello for the authorisation of a 1MW site, the mayor was not pleased because my husband's company was the 3rd asking for authorisation, and he of course didn't want PV-plants all over. But the comune is only asked to give a sanitary opinion through the ASL, and they're bound to approve on that one. The only way for the comune to stop it is to change the destination of use for the land in their "piano regolatore" as you are only allowed to construct on non-vincolated agricultural land. The region has autonomy to decide what authorisation procedures are to be followed and make life hard for investors, and some regions probably will start doing this when energy targets start to be met and the various comuni/population start complaining hard enough. Your concern is valid, but I doubt that an already given authorisation can be revoked. Normally (at least here in Abruzzo) a project has to be published in the BURA for 60 days (I think) to get people a chance to oppose. Then the project will go through the regional approval procedure "Conferenza dei servizi" where all implied agencies and public institutions are heard (together with eventual objections from the public). So in principle there has been plenty of time to stop it...also for the comune implied. In Germany part of the taxes on the generated electricity goes to the comune, so they're quite happy to have this extra income..in Italy I don't know how this part of it works. However, the government incentives for large land installations are being lowered drastically in the new year, in order to make these large plants less attractive as an investment. Small private roof-installations will still give a decent return, as the incentive only decrease by 6%.

To reply to Badgers original question, you may have a look at this link: http://www.regione.marche.it/Home/Struttureorganizzative/AmbienteePaesaggio/AutorizzazioneIntegrataAmbientale/tabid/882/ctl/master_results/mid/3949/Provincia/-1/Settore/17/Istat/-1/Tipo/1/Default.aspx which lists the authorisation processes registered with the region VIA = Valutazione Impatto Ambientale I don't find Amandola in the list, so perhaps you should look at the BUR (Bulletino Ufficiale Regione Marche) but I don't find a decent search function.. http://www.regione.marche.it/Default.aspx?tabid=285

Find it a little confusing that the province of Fermo, that Amandola is now in, not listed. Perhaps they have not updated their database!! Like yourself, to go through that 2nd link is a nightmare, looking for a needle in a haystack. Lots of other usefull comments, so will be interesting to see what happens with this class action.