Economic analysis of different supporting policies for the production of electrical energy by solar photovoltaics in eastern European Union countries

Today, photovoltaic (PV) attracts considerable interest in relation to renewable energy technologies, because of its potential to contribute significantly to the future of renewable energy. However. PV market development is related strongly to the support policies introduced by national governments, defined in national laws. The modification or fading out of such incentive schemes can strongly influence the development of the PV market in any given country. In this paper, after a brief review of national support policies in PV technology in eastern European Union (EU) countries, the authors perform an economic analysis of the main support mechanisms that are implemented in these countries. The comparative analysis is based on the calculation of the cash flow, the Net Present Value (NPV) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) indices. The analysis shows that in some situations, support policies can be inconvenient for the owner of the PV system and that, in many cases, the differences between the implementation of the same support policy in different countries, can give rise to significantly different results. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.