Assessment of Italian energy policy through the study of a photovoltaic investment on greenhouse

Abstract

The production of energy from renewable sources is a form of energy production that has less impact on the environment than the traditional one. For the farmer this new form of production represents an opportunity, especially for the economic benefits that can produce, both in terms of the incentives provided by the public operator and for higher revenues, deriving from the energy sale and/or the saving generated by self-consumed energy, that help to integrate the farmer’s income. In this paper, we analyzed a case study of a farm that has realized a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system on greenhouse. In particular, firstly the farm profitability and subsequently was estimated in order to assess the efficiency of the energy policy adopted by the Second Conto Energia in Italy; it the minimum feed-in tariff starting from which the entrepreneur has an economic advantage to realize the PV system was determined. Results show that PV system relegates to a marginal role, the cultivation of agricultural products compared to energy production and that government PV remuneration policies far outweigh the minimum threshold that makes advantageous the investment.