EU / Italy — CISAF Cleantech Manufacturing Capacity Scheme: EUR 1.5 billion in grants and loans for solar, wind, batteries, heat pumps and hydrogen

Mechanism

Italy's scheme is approved under the CISAF (Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework, adopted by the Commission on 25 June 2025), which lets Member States support new manufacturing capacity for net-zero technologies with streamlined state-aid clearance. The instrument mix is dual: direct grants and preferential (subsidised) loans, either separately or combined, rather than the single-instrument approach used in some peer schemes (e.g. France's SA.120765 tax-credit-only C3IV).

Eligible net-zero technology categories:

• Solar PV supply chain — the most granular coverage in the register: photovoltaic-grade

polysilicon, silicon ingots, wafers, cells, solar glass, modules, inverters, tracking systems and mounting structures

• Onshore and offshore wind manufacturing
• Heat pumps
• Geothermal energy equipment
• Energy storage and batteries
• Hydrogen production/component equipment
• Biomethane and biogas equipment

The scheme is geographically unrestricted across Italy, co-financed by the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), and remains open for aid grants until 31 December 2030.

Chronology within the CISAF cleantech cohort

Approved 9 December 2025, this is the earliest-dated individual CISAF Section 6.1 cleantech-manufacturing- capacity approval currently on the register — ahead of Spain's SA.119880 (approved 15 December 2025) and Hungary's SA.120705 (17 December 2025). It predates the later 2026 wave (Germany SA.121215, Greece SA.117469, France SA.120765, Luxembourg SA.120921) by up to four months. Italy also separately holds a narrower CISAF approval for renewable hydrogen (SA.118992, filed 2026-03-30) — that scheme is materially distinct in scope (hydrogen-only) from this broader multi-technology cleantech-manufacturing scheme and is listed here as a related but separate action.

The Commission's public sources for this measure did not disclose a specific SA case number (unlike most peer CISAF approvals, which cite one in the press release); none is invented here per charter §6.

Downstream implications

• Sets an early, broad-scope precedent for CISAF Section 6.1 grant/loan schemes — Italy chose a dual

grant-plus-loan instrument covering the full solar PV supply chain (polysilicon through mounting structures) rather than a narrower single-technology or single-instrument design.

• Reinforces EU onshoring of solar PV component manufacturing (polysilicon, wafers, cells, glass) at a

moment when the bloc remains heavily import-dependent on Chinese PV supply chains — relevant context for the EU-China solar trade-defence track and Italy's 2025 sustainability-criteria solar auction (1.1GW awarded to non-Chinese-component projects).

• Key ETF exposures: EZU, EWI (Italy equities), ICLN (global clean energy), TAN (solar).

Open questions

• No public SA case number identified yet for this scheme — worth checking the EC competition-cases

database periodically for backfill once published.

• Actual grant/loan disbursement rate against the EUR 1.5bn envelope is not yet visible; will only surface

in Italian budget annexes or a future Commission CISAF scoreboard.

• Whether Italy will file a further CISAF Section 6.2 (electricity-price relief) scheme, as Germany,

Bulgaria and Slovenia have.