Multi-parameter analysis for the technical and economic assessment of photovoltaic systems in the main European Union countries Marco Bortolini a , Mauro Gamberi b,⇑ , Alessandro Graziani b , Cristina Mora a , Alberto Regattieri a a Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale del Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy b Department of Management and Engineering, University of Padova, Stradella San Nicola, 3, 36100 Vicenza, Italy article info Article history: Received 11 January 2013 Accepted 24 April 2013 Available online 2 June 2013 Keywords: Multi-country analysis Net present value Performance cost model Feed-in-tariff European Union abstract In the last decades, the attention to solar energy as a renewable and nonpolluting energy source increased a lot through scientists, private and public institutions. Several efforts are made to increase the diffusion of such a source and to create the conditions making it competitive for the energy market. Particularly, for the photovoltaic (PV) sector, the module efficiency increase, manufacturing cost reduction and a strong public support, through favorable incentive schemes, generates a significant rise in the installed power, exceeding 40 GWp in 2010. Although the global trend of the PV sector is positive, differences among countries arise out of local peculiarities and evolutions in the national support policies. This paper inves- tigates such issues focusing on the feasibility analysis of PV solar systems for eight relevant countries in the European Union area, i.e. France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Turkey and United Kingdom. A multi-country and multi-parameter comparative analysis, based on the net present value and payback capital budget indices, allows to highlight the conditions most affecting the economic feasibility of PV systems. The national support strategies, along with the most relevant technical, environmental, economic and financial parameters, are the key features included and compared in the analysis. The major results deal with the conditions which make PV systems potentially profitable for each coun- try and installation feature. The national support strategies to the PV sector still play a key role for the most of the considered countries and configurations. Germany, Italy and Spain present the most favorable conditions for a profitable installation of PV systems. Furthermore, the initial investment heavily affects the plant profitability of all the studied scenarios. For such a parameter, significant returns to scale lead to an increase in the installed plant power, so that high rated power plants generally outperform the smaller ones. Such evidences, together with further relevant outcomes which can potentially drive the future investments in the solar PV systems in the European Union, are discussed in this paper. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the last decades, the spread of the renewable energy sources considerably increased due to the permanent rise of the fossil fuel costs and the growing concern for reduction of the environmental emissions from anthropic activities [1]. The guidelines, provided by the most influential international institutions, e.g. the United Nations and the World Bank, emphasize on the need to mark a turning point in the existing trend of the energy source distribution to increase the incidence of the renewable sources actually close to 16% of the global produced energy [2–4] (Fig. 1). Challenging milestones are set in the recent past. The Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change pointed out two key and complementary goals to be achieved by 2030: the reduction of the global energy intensity by 40% and the parallel increase in the access to the energy services for three billion people now ex- cluded [5]. In Europe, the European Council set ambitious energy and climate change objectives by 2020, i.e. to reduce the green- house gas emissions by 20%, to increase the share of the renewable energy to 20% and to make a 20% improvement in the energy effi- ciency [6]. In such a context, photovoltaic (PV) systems represent a great opportunity to achieve the aforementioned targets, due to the enormous theoretic potential of the solar source, which is equal to 3.9 trillion PJ per year [7], and the relevant improvements both in the physics of solar cells and in the module conversion perfor- mances [8]. Such strengths push several countries, worldwide, to promote massive investments in technologies to convert solar radiation into electric power energy through the introduction of specific strategies and customized national supporting policies. The European Union (EU) plays a pioneering role since 2001, when 0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.04.035 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0444 998735; fax: +39 0444 998888. E-mail addresses: marco.bortolini3@unibo.it (M. Bortolini), mauro.gamberi@ unipd.it (M. Gamberi), alessandro.graziani6@unibo.it (A. Graziani), cristina. mora@unibo.it (C. Mora), alberto.regattieri@unibo.it (A. Regattieri). Energy Conversion and Management 74 (2013) 117–128 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Energy Conversion and Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman