Perpigna Castillo Carolina, Batista e Silva Filipe, Lavalle Carlo

The paper aims at assessing the potential of European regions to solar power generation and its comparison with recent European Union (EU) incentives for the development of this renewable energy source. It uses a multi-criteria assessment (MCA) supported by Geographical Information System (GIS) to combine already existing information on solar radiation with other geographical factors such as slope, land use, urban extent and population distribution, as well as proximity to the power grid to generate a suitability map for photovoltaic (PV) power plants across the EU at high spatial resolution.  Regions were classified according their overall suitability for solar energy power systems and the allocated solar investments by the EU Cohesion policy.