26 Sept 2011: DNC writes: Whilst on my holiday in Northern Italy I was pleased to see quite a lot of PV panels. The region is an advanced part of Europe (compared with the South), but they have frequent and very inconvenient 'brown-outs' due to being somewhat reliant on long distance electricity transmission from Switzerland and France. I saw a number of solar farms, and factories with PV on the roofs, although nothing like as many as in Germany.
This example, in a small town somewhere between Piacenza and Bergamo shows how the imperative to capture solar energy needs to overcome petty reservations such as the proximity to historic buildings. Italy is full of historic buildings, but modern life must go on. PV is becoming part of the visual pattern of urban and rural life, and we almost cease to notice them - like lamp posts, overhead wires, lightning conductors, TV aerials, satellite dishes, kerbs and road signs. These enable cities to function, but preserve the essentials - the buildings survive, and the people in them prosper.
A few hundred metres from that example was this one of PV on a curved roof. You can see from this, that it is easily incorporated, and becomes almost un-noticeable if it is well integrated.
This photo disappoints me. I went to the 87 metre high viewpoint from the 'Mole Antoniella', the tallest building at the centre of Torino (the great city in the northwest), and I looked North. These are the ONLY PV panels I saw in the entire panorama. So although they may be frequent in towns and rural areas, it seems that the City is lagging behind.
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