MILAN, ITALY: Italy expects to reach 1,500 megawatt of installed photovoltaic capacity next year after it said it had already installed more than 600 megawatt by now, a senior official at the state-run power management agency GSE said.

"We expect that 1,500 megawatt can be easily reached in 2010 if the exponential growth trend continues", GSE Luca Benedetti told an energy conference on Wednesday.