Multi-parameter analysis for the technical and economic assessment of photovoltaic systems in the main European Union countries

The major results deal with the conditions which make PV systems potentially profitable for each country 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.