L'industria del fotovoltaico: analisi economica e caso operativo

Renewable energies are becoming more and more important and present in the Italian and international market. Our future will be based on these types of energy and the fact that all the States are continually seeking new and different ways to finance projects based on clean energy is definitely a behaviour that must be pursued. During these three years of University studies, I have never had the opportunity to directly manage something linked with photovoltaic energy, even if the theme of renewable energy has always fascinated me. I had five months ago the opportunity to do an extra-curricular internship in a firm that provides consulting services only to companies producing solar energy and the topic has so interested me that I decided to present this issue in my bachelor degree thesis. The first part of this work is focused on the most technical aspects of a photovoltaic plant. The first chapter speaks about all the technical features of a solar panelling: it describes what are modules, inverters and from what depends the productivity of the plant. The second chapter talks about the GSE, the organization which issue subsidies and tax incentives for photovoltaic industry and which is also responsible for the resale of the energy produced at more affordable rates. The third chapter, the last of this first part, deals with the theme of the "project finance"; this is the primary method for financing enterprises which decide to invest in the production of energy through photovoltaic systems. The second part of this thesis deals with a real case. There is a brief mention about the company in which I'm doing an internship right now, which is a consultant firm for companies that produce solar energy. One of these companies, of which the name cannot be mentioned for privacy reasons, is certainly an example of how the PV industry allows to achieve significant results in both economic and environmental terms; analyzing its financial position could be surely helpful to understand how should be read a financial statement of a company producing this kind of energy. For me it was really interesting to become a little bit more conscious about this topic and to create a correlation between what the University has given me in a more theoretical way with what I have seen doing my extra curricular internship.