Economic decision making of renewable power producers under uncertainty

The recent booming development of renewable power generation and government subsidies are constantly under scrutiny and various opinions exist regarding whether subsidies should be continued or not. Motivated by the controversies and debates, this dissertation attempted to address the investment decision making problem under uncertainties in the renewable power industry from the perspective of an individual power producer. Given that independent power producers still dominate the renewable power production and that majority of their output are sold through long-term power purchase agreements, this study focused on two types of uncertainties that could represent most of their kinds: the operations & maintenance (O&M) cost and governmental subsidy\u27s renewal/expiration. Three types of investment activities that covers the major part of any renewable power plant\u27s economic life are thoroughly investigated in a chronological order: an initial entry, exit when the plant reaches its economic life, and repowering. A real-options approach was adopted and improved to model the value of a power plant considering its future activities, while both cost and policy changes modeled as some stochastic processes. Significant policy implications and managerial insights were obtained as a result of extensive analytical modeling and statistical study of empirical evidence