Photovoltaics in Italian historical city centers: do PV products and building codes have a meeting point?

To design sustainable buildings represents one of the priority challenges that we have to deal with in order to reduce the use of global resources and preserve the natural environment. Within solutions for designing sustainable buildings, renewable energy systems (RES) have been introduced in order to provide buildings with non-fossil energy. However, when we consider historical buildings we can face issues in particular when it comes to the installation of photovoltaic systems. This is due to the aesthetical effect produced by photovoltaic modules on the typical view ofthe historic city centers. Within the Italian context, characterized by the wide presence of historical city centers, such issue is not yet solved. Therefore, facing this issue in such specific context can represent a significant objective. The paper proposes a possible strategy for supporting the use of PV in Italian historical city centers, conceiving a meeting point between PV products and municipalities building codes.