Economical assessment of large-scale photovoltaic plants: An Italian case study

Abstract

Photovoltaic power is characterized by higher costs than coal-fired technologies. Thus, photovoltaic systems require policy support to become more affordable. This is even more important if the goals -set by Directive 2009/28/EC- must be achieved by 2020. The present paper carefully describes the economical feasibility of a large scale photovoltaic plant, with specific regard to the Italian situation. An Italian case study is investigated and attention is paid to an extremely important tool, i.e. Project Financing. In order to better understand the economical assessment, recent public incentives and supporting measures are taken into account. After analyzing the cash flows and evaluating the Net Present Value (NPV) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), the results -obtained by the simulation for different Feed-In Tariff (FIT)s- show that the income is influenced by the date of commissioning and by the amount of incentives. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.