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Georg-Simon-Ohm-Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften Nürnberg

Georg-Simon-Ohm-Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften - Fachhochschule Nürnberg

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Business Department

Renewable Energy Finance - Seminar Papers

Exploring and developing renewable energy is a great challenge for sustainable development and growth in a globalized world. However, the financing of renewable energy is a not an easy undertaking for investors as well. 80-95% of the cost of such projects will usually occur as an initial investment cost right at the beginning, while having a lifetime of 20 to 30 years, sometimes longer. This makes renewable energy projects vulnerable to changes in technology, which are likely within such a long time span. Unlike more conventional projects where costs might be adapted later on for example by changes of fuel, costs are already sunk. Therefore a proper and careful project appraisal is essential, in particular when a project is designed to be financially sustainable and independent from subsidies. This requires extensive information about the respective investment conditions in different countries as well as the technological background.

Given these frame conditions our graduate students, in close co-operation with their supervisors, are creating a series of papers collecting and evaluating investment opportunities within the area of renewable energy in different countries. The purpose of this series is to provide valuable information to potential investors. These papers are not only an example of the on-going research in our Master of Science programme, but also set a basis for further research within our department. The topic “renewable energies” serves as an example that finance does not just deal with meaningless numbers, but that “financial engineering” is often a central precondition for progress in “real engineering” and the “real world”.