Feed-in Tariffs for Grid-connected PV Systems: The Situation in the European Community

Distributed generation demonstrates to be able to significantly influence the electric power system bringing considerable benefits to the quality of service and improving the energetic efficiency of the distribution network. In particular, in the last few years, distributed generation from renewable sources is considerably increased thanks to the many support policies promoted worldwide with the aim of facing the environmental issue and the problem of the permanent rise of prices of the fossil energy. In this contest the paper presents a study of the "feed-in tariffs" financing measure carried out, at present, in many European countries and responsible of the increase in these last years of the production of electrical energy from photovoltaic systems and from other renewable energy sources-based systems. After a brief review on the financing strategies carried out in Europe in the last decade for promoting the recourse to renewable energy, a comparison among the different ways to apply the "feed-in tariffs" measure for PV systems in four European countries (France, Germany, Italy and Spain) is presented, with the purpose of showing the analogies and the differences of Feed-in Tariffs' mechanisms in Europe.