The economic evaluation of ultra-long-lived investment projects is not only challenging due to the choice of the planning horizon but also due to the discounting of future uncertain cash flows. Thus, for real world investment decisions a better understanding of the project’s risks and their...

We develop a stochastic model for assessing the life-cycle cost and availability of wind turbines resulting from different maintenance scenarios, with the objective to identify the most cost-effective maintenance strategy. Using field-data based reliability models, the wind turbine – in terms...

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme challenges the cost-competitiveness of energy-intensive industries in Europe, and induces them to search for low-carbon alternatives for their process heat requirements, such as cogeneration or the employment of nuclear power plants. The high-temperature nuclear...

In this paper, we design and evaluate eight different strategies for hedging commodity price risks of industrial cogeneration plants. Price developments are parameterized based on EEX data from 2008-2011. The probability distributions derived are used to determine the value-at-risk (VaR) of the...

In Germany, the mitigation of CO2 emissions as well as the nuclear power phase-out are important political goals in the course of the sustainable energy transformation process (so-called “Energiewende”). The reduction in fossil- and nuclear-based energy supply has to be compensated by new...

The Russian Energy Service Company (ESCO) market emerges rapidly due to the new energy efficiency legislation that has been implemented since 2009. However, a clear identification of the Russian ESCOs, comparable to those operating in the Western markets, remains rather difficult. Hence, aside...

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of investment decisions and shifts related to onshore and offshore wind power supply chains. Insights about cost reductions are generated from analyzing project financing data, using a 'European learning curve' derived from a European learning system. In...

The value of power generation technologies can be derived from the investment cost, the plant’s expected lifetime, and the discounted cash-flows, the latter of which typically are a combination of several underlyings, such as the price of fuel, electricity, and CO2. To determine this value,...

Forecasting the production of photovoltaic (PV) and wind power systems inevitably implies inaccuracies. Therefore, sales made based on forecasts almost always require the vendor to make balancing efforts. In the absence of resources available within their own portfolios, operators can turn...

Today’s investment decisions in large-scale onshore wind projects in Germany are no longer determined only by the investment’s economic benefit, but also by concerns associated to social acceptance. Despite a mostly positive attitude towards the expansion of wind power, local public concerns...