فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Encouraging foreign and private sectors to participate in renewable projects in developing countries, which not only experience rapid growth in energy demand but also encounter challenges in financing clean projects, presents a complex issue for their governments. To address this challenge, two contentious issues must be addressed concurrently: 1) accurate long-term valuation of Renewable Energy (RE) projects and 2) the assessment of the ideal timing for investments. This paper introduces a binomial tree real-option-based model as a valuable tool for valuing Renewable Energy (RE) projects and determining the optimal timing for investments in developing countries. Three key factors influencing project cash flow were considered in the calculation: Feed-in Tariff (FiT), Maintenance and Operation (M&O) costs, and energy production. Three scenarios were analyzed for exercising option to either improve project profitability, maintain the current profit, or prevent further losses. A real life case study involving a solar photovoltaic (PV) park in Iran has also been investigated to validate and verify the proposed model. The results revealed that, unlike traditional methods such as Net Present Value (NPV) which yielded a negative value suggesting that the project lacks financial viability, the option-based model demonstrated the project's investment potential by generating a positive value through the incorporation of option values inherent in growth projects.