The Authorization Law
Cia Puglia, through an official letter signed by the president Gennaro Sicolo addressed to the president of the Puglia Region, has forwarded a formal request to Michele Emiliano for the urgent convocation of a meeting with the heads of all the regional offices competent on the photovoltaic issue"The goal," Sicolo explains, "is to amend the regional law regarding permits for the construction of new photovoltaic systems on agricultural land. We must stop the indiscriminate invasion of panels, which is detrimental to agricultural production."
The case of Bitonto
On May 9th, Gennaro Sicolo's outraged and forceful denunciation of what was happening in Bitonto caused a stir. Two thousand prized olive trees, healthy and productive, were uprooted to make way for a mega 2-hectare photovoltaic plant in Bitonto. Subsequently, at the Finoliva headquarters in Bitonto, on May 15st, Cia Puglia organized a meeting with Michele Emiliano, who was presented with a proposal to amend the regional law on photovoltaic plants. The proposal, developed by Massimo Fragassi, head of Cia Puglia's Legislative Office, hinges on three key points: considering productive agricultural land a common good to be preserved and used for crops; reserving the construction of new plants in industrial zones, abandoned quarries, and on public buildings; and limiting the use of agricultural land to land that has been uncultivated for at least five years. Furthermore, according to Cia Puglia, local governments must finally have a say in the authorization process, asserting the characteristics and protection of the territory, so that unsuitable authorizations are not granted.
Land consumption
On June 9, in Bari, Cia Puglia, at a meeting attended by Councilor Donato Pentassuglia and the President of the Agriculture Commission, Francesco Paolicelli, denounced the unsustainable situation inherent in the growing land consumption in all of Puglia's provinces. Puglia is the leading region in Southern Italy and the third in Italy for installed photovoltaic capacity, with 3.768 MW (data updated as of December 31, 2024); it also leads overall in the number of wind turbines and the amount of wind energy generated in 2024, with 6.392,50 GW/h in a single year. The "heel of Italy" ranks fifth among the regions of the Bel Paese in terms of land consumption, at 8,27% (ISPRA 2024 report). Regarding the provinces, according to the most recent data, in Puglia in 2023 the province of Lecce consumed the largest amount of land, a total of 39.739 hectares; followed by Bari (37.275), Foggia (28.149), Taranto (23.747), Brindisi (19.989), and BAT (11.105). At the municipal level, however, the three Apulian cities that consumed the most land in 2023 were: Lucera (24,59 hectares), Cerignola (22,67 ha), and Ostuni (19,39 ha).
Operational meeting
From 2006 to 2023, ground-mounted photovoltaic systems in Italy occupied 16.147 hectares of land, representing 12,5% of total land use. "Agriculture in Puglia is the region's leading open-air industry: it is our history, our future, our identity, and we must preserve it," Sicolo states. "For this reason, we have asked President Emiliano to urgently convene an operational meeting to concretely address the issue."
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