This thesis conducts a profitability analysis of investments in Photovoltaic (PV) installations connected to the Spanish electrical grid system, focusing on the regulatory framework and investment returns. The thesis takes the investor’s perspective on the analysis of policy support systems and contributes by bringing closer policy design and policy results. Key aspects of PV investments are studied including the influence of the parameters involved in the economical evaluation of PV plants and the investment costs that will make no longer necessary to have a support scheme for these investments. In addition, the returns required by investors are studied and, with assumed investment costs reductions, a de-escalating feed-intariff (FIT) for PV investments during 2011-2015 is proposed. The results obtained indicate that grid-parity will be reached at a turnkey (all-included) cost of about 2676 €/kWp, which requires a cost reduction of 40% from current costs and it will not happen earlier than 2016. In addition, during the next few years, to maintain a sustainable amount of investments, the FIT should be reduced at a rate very close to the forecasted costs reductions and the regulatory framework should be updated to eliminate the administrative costs incurred due to the capacity limits, adopting a more dynamic and market-based support scheme.

Outgoing