Main

Henrique Silva Pacini Costa

Abstract

The European Union is committed to increasing the use of renewable energies across Europe. One of the ways this is to be done is through the promotion of solar photovoltaics (PV), a method with significant environmental benefits. However, the high costs of electricity generated through PV have constrained the market reach of this option. This paper takes the form of a policy discussion, analyzing the fundamental issues concerning this type of energy, and its place in the European alternative energy market. Furthermore, a scenario is drafted to estimate how efficient solar panels should ideally be to make electricity produced by them cost-competitive with conventional, grid-tied energy sources.  The study considers both a conventional scenario and another, with carbon capture costs incorporated into the final electricity prices. It is observed that in order to be competitive with conventional fossil-based electricity, photovoltaic conversion efficiencies should be around 34%. Incorporating carbon costs would further help promote solar PV, making it more price-attractive compared to emission-intensive electricity generation based on fossil fuels. The final part of the paper sheds light on the new developments on European PV, mainly in regards to the 2008 European Commission Climate Change Package, its implications and reactions from the industry.

Details

Article Keywords

Photovoltaics, European Union, Renewable Energies

Section
Research Articles
Article Copyright
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Material published in the JCER is done so under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence, with copyright remaining with the author.
  • Articles published online in the JCER cannot be published in another journal without explicit approval of the JCER editor.
  • Authors can 'self-archive' their articles in digital form on their personal homepages, funder repositories or their institutions' archives provided that they link back to the original source on the JCER website. Authors can archive pre-print, post-print or the publisher's version of their work.
  • Authors agree that submitted articles to the JCER will be submitted to various abstracting, indexing and archiving services as selected by the JCER.
Further information about archiving and copyright are contained within the JCER Open Access Policy.