Rules change for biomethane, agrivoltaics and CACER, and a new deadline is introduced, beyond 30 June 2026
As is well known, the draft decree law introducing urgent measures for the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) has recently been made public.
The decree gives effect to the sixth revision of the Plan, approved on 27 November by the European Council, which became necessary in light of the acknowledged impossibility of achieving, within the originally envisaged timeframes and modalities, also following previous revisions of the Plan, the objectives initially set for 30 June 2026.
A step back: the origin of the sixth revision of the PNRR
With the Communication NextGenerationEU, the road to 2026 (COM(2025) 310 final) of 4 June 2025, the Commission provided Member States with guidance on how to further rationalise their respective recovery and resilience plans (RRP).
In this context, the European Commission identified a number of possible actions, including: (i) strengthening existing measures, reallocating resources to measures that have delivered results beyond expectations; (ii) reducing resources allocated to measures that cannot be implemented within the required timeframes; (iii) using financial instruments managed by independent entities under the facility model, in order to stimulate private investment in response to market failures.
Within the scope of such investments, the RRP milestones would cover: (a) the transfer of funds to the implementing partner through the execution of implementation agreements; and (b) the execution of contracts with final beneficiaries for the use of the full amount of the transferred funds.
In order to introduce such a financial instrument or grant scheme, Member States should identify the market failure they intend to address and the related market demand, ensure that decisions on the award of the implementing partner are independent from the government and that financial management is separated from the Member State, as well as assess the operational capacity of the implementing partner to deploy the instrument.
The GSE facilities for biomethane, agrivoltaics and energy communities
Against this background, Article 29 of the draft decree introduces into the Italian legal system the facility mechanism envisaged by the European Commission for three strategic sectors: biomethane, agrivoltaics and energy communities (CACER).
The mechanism provides for the establishment of specific grant programmes financed by the PNRR and aimed at granting capital contributions.
Specifically, the measures already in place will be included in an incentive programme with a total value of EUR 4.130 billion in non-repayable grants, resources already allocated to Italy under the PNRR, broken down as follows: EUR 1.1 billion for agrivoltaics, EUR 795 million for energy communities and EUR 2.2 billion for biomethane.
The management of the programmes is entrusted to the GSE, and, for each measure, specific implementation agreements will be executed between the GSE and the Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security (MASE), setting out the rules for selection, assessment, control, monitoring, reporting and financial management.
The agreements must also provide for the substitution of the GSE for the MASE in the disbursement of grants and in relations with entities already selected or beneficiaries on the basis of measures adopted prior to the entry into force of the decree, as well as for the transfer of the related financial resources.
The investment programmes originally envisaged and governed by the relevant implementing decrees (namely, Ministerial Decree of 15 September 2022 for biomethane, Ministerial Decree of 22 December 2023 for agrivoltaics and Ministerial Decree of 7 December 2023 for energy communities) will remain unchanged in substantive terms, with regard to objectives, beneficiaries and eligible costs.
The novelty instead concerns the deadlines for entry into operation of the plants. The 30 June 2026 deadline set by the ministerial decrees is superseded. The new deadline will be established in the grant awards or in the related addenda and, in any event, may not exceed 24 months from the notification of such acts, under penalty of forfeiture of the incentives.
The date of 30 June 2026 remains relevant exclusively as a deadline for the execution of the financing agreements between the GSE and the operators
The entry into operation of the plants may therefore occur up to 24 months after notification of the contracts, potentially extending to 30 June 2028.
This approach reduces the risk that PNRR financed projects may fail to meet the 2026 deadlines, a risk widely highlighted in recent months in light of delays by suppliers, contractors and network operators, both gas and electricity, in the construction and energisation of the plants.
The facility system, managed by the GSE, in fact allows incentives to be effectively reserved until 2028, ensuring greater implementation flexibility for beneficiaries.
Decisions on the allocation of capital grants by the GSE will be adopted by majority vote of an independent investment committee established within the GSE, without government control.
Eligibility requirements
In order to access the funding, beneficiary projects must comply with certain fundamental requirements. In line with the original decrees, the new measure provides for:
the principle of do no significant harm (DNSH), therefore excluding projects involving fossil fuels, installations subject to the EU emissions trading system with emissions above permitted thresholds, as well as waste management facilities such as landfills and incinerators.
the prohibition on cumulation of grants, whereby non repayable PNRR funding may not be combined with other European funding to cover the same costs.
Operational uncertainties
Despite the definition of the general framework, several uncertainties remain regarding the concrete operation of the measure.
On the one hand, the implementation agreements between the GSE and the MASE have yet to be executed, which will define the rules for selection, control and management of the grants. On the other hand, the operational regulations still need to be published, setting out, inter alia, detailed technical and procedural rules, including disbursement timelines, obligations of beneficiaries during and after the construction of the plants, procedures for reporting eligible costs, and the modalities and timing for the payment of capital grants, expected within 45 days from the execution of the agreements between the MASE and the GSE.
Pending the transfer of resources to the GSE, the latter is nevertheless entitled to advance the grants using resources at its disposal, up to a limit of ten per cent of the overall amount of the grant programmes, thereby providing some relief to the cash flows of awarded companies (it should be recalled that, under the operating rules of the Ministerial Decree of 15 September 2022 for biomethane, the capital contribution is recognised only upon completion of the works).
Until these instruments are defined, it is not possible to have a clear picture of the actual functioning of the facility, nor of the timing and modalities for the identification of any new beneficiaries, in particular with reference to the sixth biomethane auction, which was announced but never launched.
It should also be noted that on 19 June 2025 the MASE already intervened on agrivoltaic deadlines with ministerial decree no. 149 under which it was allowed to admitted companies to end the electric construction work by 30 June 2026, whereas commissioning of the plants was to achieve in the following 18 months. It shall now be clarified by the authorities whether this ministerial decree shall be considered entirely repealed by the new law-decree or coordination measures between the two provisions.
Finally, it is unclear what role will be assigned to the independent investment committee established within the GSE, considering that, at present, the beneficiaries of the biomethane and agrivoltaic measures have already been identified through the relevant competitive procedures.
It is therefore necessary to clarify whether such committee will operate exclusively with regard to CACER or whether it may also affect projects already admitted to incentives, notwithstanding that their bankability should be considered definitively secured due to the consolidation of the right to receive the incentive following successful inclusion in the ranking lists, as confirmed by the GSE in July 2025 with reference to plants ranked between positions 149 and 298 of the fifth auction[1].
A measure that circumvents, but does not resolve, structural problems
Beyond the uncertainties still surrounding the operational functioning of the facility, one key point emerges. The sixth revision of the PNRR makes it possible to formally comply with European deadlines but does not ensure the actual achievement of energy policy objectives.
The milestones set by the Plan are now limited to two formal steps: the transfer of funds to the implementing partner upon execution of the implementation agreements and the execution of contracts with final beneficiaries for the use of the full amount of allocated funds.
What is missing is the core objective, namely the entry into operation by 2026 of a defined capacity of renewable energy generation. In other words, resources are committed in the expectation that plants will be built, without any guarantee that all projects will be completed within the envisaged timeframe.
The central issue remains the complexity of the permitting framework and delays in grid connections by electricity and gas network operators, both transmission and distribution.
In particular, the gas network has proven insufficiently widespread and capable of absorbing new production capacity regardless of plant location. The electricity network, on the other hand, is affected by a high level of saturation and an ever-increasing number of connection requests (280,000 new connections for e distribution in 2024, an increase of 22.4 per cent compared to 2023[2]).
Significant technical difficulties associated with the development of advanced agrivoltaic plants should also not be overlooked.
All these factors have led to delays in achieving the relevant milestone and have made activation of the above-mentioned facility mechanism unavoidable.
Ultimately, the adopted strategy allows compliance with the letter of European deadlines but leaves the substance unresolved. Without structural interventions on permitting and infrastructure, there is a concrete risk that part of the estimated production capacity will fail to enter into operation even within the extended deadlines.
It should be noted that a further measure related to the implementation of the PNRR (Measure M7 6 Reform 3, scheduled for the third quarter of 2025) was adopted by the legislature through the 2026 Budget Law (Law no. 199 of 2025). Said law provides, with regard to connection to the natural gas transmission and distribution networks, and with the aim of addressing the current infrastructural constraints affecting the admissibility of biomethane into the networks and of promoting the widespread use of biomethane, for the following obligations to be imposed on network operators:
on the one hand, the obligation to connect to their networks, within mandatory time limits and subject to penalties, with substitute procedures provided for in the event of inaction, both newly built biomethane production plants and plants resulting from the upgrading of pre-existing biogas production facilities, in accordance with the rules set out by the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment (ARERA);
on the other hand, the allocation to transmission or distribution system operators of 70 per cent of the costs of investments for connection to transmission or distribution networks and 100 per cent of the costs relating to metering systems and compression, depending on the identified connection solution, with the remaining 30 per cent of the connection investment costs borne by producers.
ARERA is required to update its regulation concerning the technical and economic conditions for the provision of connection services for biomethane production plants to natural gas networks whose operators are subject to third party connection obligations by 15 February 2026.
Without prejudice to the clearly positive impact of this measure also with reference to ongoing and forthcoming extraordinary transactions, publication of the decree and, subsequently, of the agreements between the MASE and the GSE is awaited, as well as, with specific regard to the biomethane sector, the new ARERA regulation.
[1] https://www.gse.it/servizi-per-te/news/sviluppo-del-biometano-ok-del-consiglio-ue-a-risorse-aggiuntive.
[2] Source, e-distribuzione S.p.A., Annual Report and Financial Statements as at 31 December 2024: https://www.e-distribuzione.it/content/dam/e-distribuzione/documenti/e-distribuzione/Bilancio_esercizio_2024.pdf
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