Investment evaluation in renewable projects under uncertainty, using real options analysis: the case of wind power industry

Abstract

Investment analysis is a crucial process for any investment’s success. This process can be supported by both the discounted cash flow analysis and the real options analysis. Many researchers have point out restrictions for the first one, in cases of uncertainty in the entrepreneurial environment. The main types of uncertainty, concerning the wind energy sector, include uncertainties related to the price of electriticity by RES, the public policy regulatory policies, the demand, the initial capital costs, the technological progress, the weather conditions, the political and economical situations and generally the RES market structure. In this paper, we try to find the optimal investment strategy in a liberalized global electricity market, where the price of electricity is uncertain while the other parameters are configured separately in each country. The authors consider about the factors of the time for investment and the electricity’s price level, in wind energy by using the real options theory. The authors select a variety of data for the wind energy industry from different countries in several continents, and also create a model for the investment analysis in this entrepreneurial sector.

Keywords

• investment analysis
• real options
• uncertainty
• wind energy