FIT in Europe
Written by Announcement Author on Monday, October 26th, 2009 in Environment and Natural Resources.
The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) is an incentive invented to remunerate the production of renewable energy both by households and investors. Power companies are required to pay back, at rates higher than the market, power originated from renewable sources; such as wind, thermal solar, photovoltaic solar, biomass, hydro and geothermal. This tariff goes also under the name of Feed-in Law, Solar Premium, Renewable Tariff or Renewable Energy Payments. FIT helps make the production of renewable energy competitive. Usually governments pledge the tariff for up to 15, 20 or even 25 years from the date of the putting in place.
The progress of sources of renewable energy is deemed fundamental to preventing climate change. Producing renewable energy still costs more than the cost of producing energy from fossil fuels. FIT tries to counterbalance this difference, thus making more attractive renewable energy installations, asking the utility company to repurchase and reuse the power generated by renewable installations. The difference in cost is spread over all of the customers of the power company. FIT requires net metering regulation to account for power purchased from the grid and energy sold to the grid.
FIT is considered as more effective than quotas enforced on power companies, because it fulfills the morality of people. What follows is a simplified overview of FIT policies by some European countries.
| COUNTRY | BRACKET 1 (0 < 5 kWp) |
BRACKET 2 (5 < 10 kWp) |
BRACKET 3 (> 10 kWp) |
YEARS | NOTE |
| Austria | 0.46 €/kWh | 0.40 €/kWh | 0.30 €/kWh | - | lower after 10 yrs |
| Belgium | 1.09 €/kWh | 0.82 €/kWh | 0.54 €/kWh | 15 | lower after 10 yrs, < 250 kWp |
| Bulgaria | 0.40 €/kWh | 0.36 €/kWh | 0.36 €/kWh | - | lower after 10 yrs, bracket 3 = bracket 2 |
| Czech Republic | 0.53 €/kWh | 0.53 €/kWh | 0.53 €/kWh | 20 | fixed |
| France | 0.55 €/kWh | 0.55 €/kWh | 0.55 €/kWh | 20 | fixed, 0.30 €/kWh ground |
| Germany | (0 < 30kWp) 0.43 | (30 < 100 kWp) 0.41 €/kWh | (100 < 1000) 0.40 €/kWh | 20 | > 1000 kWp 0.33 €/kWh |
| Greece | (0 <100 kWp) 0.46 €/kWh | (> 100 kWp) 0.40 €/kWh | 10 | ||
| Italy | (0 < 3kWp) 0.49 €/kWh | (3 < 20 kWp) 0.46 €/kWh | (20 < ) 0.44 €/kWh | 20 | |
| Luxenbourg | (0 < 30kWp) 0.41 €/kWh | (30 < 1000 kWp) 0.36 €/kWh | 15 | ||
| Netherlands | (0.6 < 3kWp) 0.33 €/kWh | 15 | |||
| Portugal | 0.55 €/kWh | 0.40 €/kWh | 5 | max 50 MW buildings. 150 ground | |
| Slovenia | 0.39 €/kWh | 0.39 €/kWh | 0.39 €/kWh | 10 | fixed |
| Spain | 0.33 €/kWh | 0.33 €/kWh | 0.33 €/kWh | 25 | fixed |