The use of incentives has given a great contribution to the increase of renewable energy penetration in the Italian energy mix. However, the incentive systems do not consider the heterogeneous distribution of renewable resources over the Italian territory. The goal of this work is to elaborate new general criteria to allocate incentives to different energy conversion systems that differ for a lower or higher degree of renewable energy penetration taking into account the local climatic characteristics and resources availability. First, the economic convenience of these systems in terms of Net Present Value (NPV) and Payback Period (PBP) is evaluated in different locations, both including and not including the current system of incentives. Second, two original and general criteria for the evaluation of the incentives are proposed. The first criterion calculates the incentive by comparing the maximum NPV value obtained by the energy system in the most favourable location with the NPVs obtained in the other locations by the same system, and assigns to the unfavourable locations an incentive that makes the NPV equal to the maximum one. The second criterion evaluates the incentive to make each system in each location achieve the same PBP. Results show that the first criterion can be considered as a suitable integration to the current government incentive system to achieve a fairer investment opportunity over the whole territory. It indicates, for example, that the installation of the considered solar-only energy system in the North needs an additional incentive of 4500 €/year to achieve the same economic convenience as in the South. Conversely, the second criterion demonstrates to be a valid alternative to the current government incentives. Depending on the energy system, it reduces the NPV gap between North and South to values in between 21 - 24 % (versus 47 - 54 % given by the current incentive system).
New incentive systems for renewable penetration considering local climatic characteristics and sources availability: the case of Italy
Gianluca Carraro;Sergio Rech;Andrea Lazzaretto;Piero Danieli
2021
Abstract
The use of incentives has given a great contribution to the increase of renewable energy penetration in the Italian energy mix. However, the incentive systems do not consider the heterogeneous distribution of renewable resources over the Italian territory. The goal of this work is to elaborate new general criteria to allocate incentives to different energy conversion systems that differ for a lower or higher degree of renewable energy penetration taking into account the local climatic characteristics and resources availability. First, the economic convenience of these systems in terms of Net Present Value (NPV) and Payback Period (PBP) is evaluated in different locations, both including and not including the current system of incentives. Second, two original and general criteria for the evaluation of the incentives are proposed. The first criterion calculates the incentive by comparing the maximum NPV value obtained by the energy system in the most favourable location with the NPVs obtained in the other locations by the same system, and assigns to the unfavourable locations an incentive that makes the NPV equal to the maximum one. The second criterion evaluates the incentive to make each system in each location achieve the same PBP. Results show that the first criterion can be considered as a suitable integration to the current government incentive system to achieve a fairer investment opportunity over the whole territory. It indicates, for example, that the installation of the considered solar-only energy system in the North needs an additional incentive of 4500 €/year to achieve the same economic convenience as in the South. Conversely, the second criterion demonstrates to be a valid alternative to the current government incentives. Depending on the energy system, it reduces the NPV gap between North and South to values in between 21 - 24 % (versus 47 - 54 % given by the current incentive system).
Pubblicazioni consigliate
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
