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The paper examines the responsiveness of the electricity demand coverage in urban contexts to the changes in the Italian policies for PV systems. The morphological configuration of building roofs according to the number of covered flats, annual data of PV generation and electricity consumptions were considered in the transition from the feed-in tariff (FIT) mechanism to the tax credits scheme currently in force. With the aim of assessing the changes over time in three representative cities, the fluctuations both in the premiums for the produced electricity and the tax credits applied to the PV system costs were observed from July 2010 to February 2016. Furthermore, the main time-varying parameters, such as the prices of the exported and purchased electricity, prices of the PV system devices discount rate, average inflation rate and increase in the electricity price were included in the assessment. The proposed estimation methodology, which economically filters the energy results, found that the tax credits program was more attractive than the FIT and premium schemes until the first trimester of 2016, when some modifications to the electricity bills for domestic consumers were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an economic analysis of the investment in grid-connected PV (photovoltaic) systems installed on the rooftops of buildings located in densely urbanised contexts. The analysis was applied to some case studies that were selected as representative of the latitudes of the southern, central and northern Italy. The returns of the investment in PV systems were investigated with the aim of comparing the impact of the current PV policy, based on the tax credit scheme, with the FIT (feed-in tariff) scheme, in force until July 2013. The cash flows related to the disbursements and benefits during the lifetime of the investment were computed for each combination of orientation, tilt, roof shape and number of householders in the buildings. The pay-back periods referred to the totality of the PV systems of each case study were estimated. The results showed that the implemented tax credit scheme produces more advantageous pay-back periods. The LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) was calculated as an indicator of the competitiveness of the PV technology. Although the tax credit scheme is more profitable than the FIT scheme, urban PV solar in Italy is still not competitive with conventional generation sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the distributive effects on Italian households of the three most relevant housing subsidies targeted to renters: a national rent supplement scheme introduced in the context of the reform that liberalised the rental market in the late 1990s, a tax credit for renters that has been recently strengthened and the implicit economic support given to tenants in the social housing sector, through below-market rents. The analysis is performed on data from the Eu-Silc survey for Italy and, in the case of the housing allowances, also on register data from 9 out of the 13 largest Italian towns. We consider, in particular, the ability of these schemes to target low-income households and their effects on the overall levels of poverty and inequality. Results from our analysis show a good targeting but very limited effect on social protection, with the partial exception of social housing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]