An international overview of promotion policies for grid-connected photovoltaic systems

The design of effective future promotion polices for photovoltaics (PV) needs the lessons learned from past experiences. The major objective of this study is to analyse the major PV markets over time to identify the effects caused by the two main promotion schemes: the achievement of economic profitability by means of Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) and the use of the Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) in investment subsidies. For this purpose, indicators have been defined that characterise the promotion policies for grid-connected PV since the middle of the 1990s: (i) dissemination effectiveness, (ii) costs for the public, (iii) development of system prices over time, (iv) consumer's WTP and (v) profitability for the consumer.