An analysis of feed’in tariffs for solar PV in six representative countries of the European Union

Abstract

In this paper, after a brief review on the main support policies for Photovoltaic (PV) systems in Europe, the specific situations of six representative countries (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the U.K.) are examined, with the purpose of highlighting the main differences in the implementation of the feed’in tariff (FiT) support policies adopted for PV systems. In particular, a comparison based on the calculation of economic indexes, as the Discounted Cash Flows (DCF), the Pay-Back-Period (PBP), the Net Present Value (NPV) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), for different sized PV systems shows that a specific FiT can sometimes be inconvenient for the producer and that the different ways of implementing FiT support policies in the various countries can lead to significantly different results. The analysis carried out in this paper could help to assess the impact of PV energy policies in the main European markets, to make a prediction of how PV market could evolve in the selected EU member states, to gain an insight into the future of possible energy policies.