NMS PV market, just like other PV markets, is strongly dependent on governmentally supported programmes and decisions made by politicians. Political framework determines deployment of PV industry by defining support schemes. A stable long-term policy and differentiated programs are crucial to ensure the continuous market development. The Czech example shows that a stable solar policy really pays off, its market took off at a bullish growth rate. Many NMS still wait for major enforcement of support mechanism. Tax incentives and beneficial credit terms exist in the vast majority of new member states (Table 2). However the real engine of significant PV market growth is the effective feed-in tariffs. Vast majority of NMS benefits already from FIT. Nevertheless only high levels of guaranteed payment for feeding electric energy into the grid can attract investors.

Table 2. Measures of RES support in NMS

The present situation of the regulatory framework for PV in NMS is heterogeneous. Not only situation varies by the countries, but there is a dose of uncertainty as changes of govemment policy are quite freguent in NMS. Decisions made on an EU level harmonise its member states' policies to some extent. European Heads of State or Government agreed in March 2007 on binding targets to increase the share of RES by 2020 to 20% of the EU's final energy consumption. Since then all of the member states are bound to fulfill individual requirements and adapt to new standards. Most of NMS implement national strategy plans that set out the objectives and policies to enable renewable energy sources to take a key position in energy sector. Those regulations come as a result of international obligations of Kyoto protocol and European directives. National action plans set targets for the share of RES in national energy mix. The renewables targets are calculated as the share of RES consumption to gross final energy consumption.

Summary of the FIT for PV in NMS is shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Feed-in tariffs for PV in NMS.