The analysis conducted through R-Cloud opens up a new area of investigation into the digitalisation of photovoltaic plant management. Within the monitored portfolio, deviations remain limited at larger installations but increase significantly at smaller ones. Raptech comments: “These findings highlight the importance of having tools that can promptly identify and interpret what is happening at each individual installation.”
Rome, October 2026
How much can digitalisation improve the efficiency of managing a portfolio of photovoltaic installations? And how much value can be generated by the ability to automatically cross-reference actual energy production, expected incentives and payments received?
These questions have prompted Raptech to develop a new area of analysis through R-Cloud, its asset management platform, with the aim of examining some of the factors shaping the financial and administrative management of photovoltaic installations in Italy.
The first finding concerns the relationship between advance payments made by the Energy Services Manager (Gestore dei Servizi Energetici, GSE) and the subsequent final settlement for installations receiving incentives under the Conto Energia scheme.
Under this mechanism, installations with a capacity above 20 kW receive monthly payments calculated on the basis of production over the previous twelve months. The reference data is updated four times a year—in January, April, July and October—while the final settlement is calculated using the actual energy production measured during the relevant year
A deviation between these two figures is therefore normal and expected under the way the system operates.
Raptech’s analysis does not focus on the existence of such deviations, but rather on their magnitude and, above all, on the ability to identify cases in which the difference exceeds what can reasonably be attributed to the standard advance payment and final settlement mechanism.
The Data: limited differences at larger installations, sSignificantly wider gaps at smaller sites
In 2024, the portfolio monitored through R-Cloud managed hundreds of millions of euros in expected GSE incentive payments, including advance payments and final settlements.
At the time of the analysis, 2.43% of the total amount remained unpaid compared with the figures calculated by the algorithms developed by Raptech. In 2023, this share stood at 1.86%.
The overall figure therefore appears relatively limited, but breaking it down by installation size reveals a much more complex picture.
For installations with a capacity exceeding 1 MW, the deviations identified generally range between 1% and 3%, levels consistent with the effects of the standard advance payment and subsequent settlement mechanism.
For installations below 200 kW, however, Raptech’s portfolio analysis reveals deviations exceeding 50%.
A discrepancy of this magnitude is difficult to explain solely by the quarterly schedule used to update advance payments.
Possible explanations include delays or inconsistencies in the communication of energy production measurements. When data is unavailable or transmitted late, advance payments may fail to reflect actual production in a timely manner, and the resulting difference can become significant at the final settlement stage.
This issue can be particularly relevant for smaller installations, where the management and continuous monitoring of information flows may be less structured than in large industrial portfolios.
From Data to Insight: the role of digitalisation
This is where, according to Raptech, one of the key benefits of digitalisation in the photovoltaic sector becomes apparent.
Having access to data alone is not enough. The decisive step is the ability to automatically cross-reference information from different sources, identify discrepancies and turn them into alerts that operators can act upon.
Every month, R-Cloud compares actual energy production measured at the installations with the amounts credited by the GSE, isolating the portion of the discrepancy that exceeds what would be expected under the standard advance payment and final settlement mechanism.
The same process enabled Raptech to identify a particularly high concentration of discrepancies among smaller installations within the portfolio analysed in 2024.
“The final settlement is not a system error; it is an integral part of how the mechanism is designed,” explains Marco Berliocchi, CEO and co-founder of Raptech. “From our perspective, the key question is how much of the discrepancy is normal and how much may indicate a missing measurement, a data mismatch or a situation that requires further investigation. Doing this manually means cross-referencing GSE data, production readings and information from the various parties involved, month by month and installation by installation. When managing hundreds of assets, technology becomes essential.”
Towards a Raptech Observatory on the digitalisation of the photovoltaic sector
This initial analysis is part of a broader initiative through which Raptech aims to progressively share aggregated insights from the digital management of photovoltaic installations with the market.
The objective is not to develop statistics that are representative of the entire Italian photovoltaic fleet, but to use a real-world asset portfolio to identify trends, recurring patterns and operational issues that can help explain how photovoltaic management in Italy is evolving.
The result is an observatory grounded in real-world experience, complementing official statistics and focusing primarily on the relationship between technology, asset management and the ability to transform large volumes of data into actionable insights.
In a market characterised by a growing number of installations, operators and data streams to manage, digitalisation is gradually reshaping the very concept of asset management: moving beyond simple production monitoring towards an integrated approach to technical, financial and administrative performance.
The first data for 2025, which remain preliminary because year-end settlements have not yet been fully processed, indicate further developments in the trend observed.
Raptech will publish an updated report with final figures in the coming months, together with further insights emerging from the aggregated analysis of the portfolio managed through R-Cloud.