How we approach greenfield solar development in Italy

Terrawatt’s development process runs across five sequential stages: site scouting and pre-screening, technical and land predevelopment, grid connection, permitting (AU or PAS depending on project type), and construction readiness.

Each phase is a prerequisite for the next, and every stage is owned internally. External specialists are brought in for specific activities only — topographic surveys, environmental studies, legal reviews — not to run the process.

This keeps handover time between phases short, maintains project coherence over time, and means we can engage directly with every regulatory and institutional counterpart throughout the authorisation process.

A utility-scale solar project in Italy typically takes three to five years from first screening to Ready-to-Build, depending on permitting complexity and project size.

Terrawatt treats that timeline as a structural reality to be managed well, not a constraint to be worked around. Moving through each phase with proper technical rigour means no shortcuts in preliminary checks and no gaps in the documentation trail.

Developers who try to compress that timeline artificially tend to produce assets with documentation weaknesses that surface during buyer due diligence. It is one of the most common sources of hidden risk in Italian solar M&A.