Applying Dynamic Performance Management to the Photovoltaic Sector: the Municipality of Palermo case study

Today, the even more compelling need to limit carbon dioxide emissions from energy generation – to address the ongoing global warming – implies the recourse to renewable energy sources (RESs). Indeed, these latter are able to meet energy demand into a more sustainable way. Considering the EU targets for the year 2020 in the matter of climate and energy, public organizations are expected to take an active role e.g. by adopting and promoting RESs. In Italy, over the last decade, among the various technologies based on RESs, solar PV technology witnessed a remarkable growth thanks to the support of a government incentive scheme, which ceased to be applied in 2013. Since then, the PV power installed in the Italian public sector has started slowing down, thus determining changes in clean energy production from PVs. Based on this, the research study aims at enhancing the design, adoption, and evaluation of public policies for PVs in order to foster the achievement of a sustainable development in terms of clean energy. To this end, a “Dynamic Performance Management” (DPM) approach – resulting from the combination of System Dynamic methodology with the traditional Performance Management (PM) systems – is suggested. The need for adopting such an approach comes from the limitations of the traditional PM systems, which are not able to deal with the dynamic complexity that characterizes the systems in which public decision-makers operate. The DPM approach is applied to a case study based on the PV sector of the Municipality of Palermo (Italy). Empirical evidences, emerging from the development of a simulation model, reveal how the design and application of a DPM approach to the PV sector may effectively support public decision-makers in outlining sustainable policies aimed at fostering clean energy production.