Development of risk management and investment strategies in renewable energy industry

Abstract

Rapid deployment of renewable energy worldwide is desirable in order to address the issues of climate change, meet mandatory renewable energy targets and provide sufficient economic development opportunities. Fiscal expenditure and funding constraints indicate that substantial investments are required from public and private sectors to support the industry. Only with enough attractive investment opportunities and effective risk management and investment strategies, public, private and institutional investors can become significant sources of capital for renewable energy. Apart from that, renewable energy developments are also slowed down by market failures, economic barrier, informational barrier, awareness barrier, socio-cultural barrier, institutional barrier and policy barrier.

A new financing instrument, called hybrid bond, to build renewable energy projects is proposed. In response to concerns over the barriers, the hybrid bond is composed by a portfolio of renewable energy projects. Numerical examples show that the proposed model is able to achieve the dual goals of financing renewable energy project as well as mitigating market, credit, operational, liquidity and political risks with the sale of a hybrid bond.

Apart from that, a three-level top down strategy for renewable energy investment is designed to overcome the barriers. The proposed strategy is a structured, effective and flexible framework. The first-level of the top down strategy aims to identify and analyze the renewable energy global market leaders in economics and renewable energy policy. The second-level aims to specify renewable energy sector that presents the most attractive investment opportunity. And the third-level aims to select the most promising renewable energy investment vehicles for investors. However, a direct comparison between countries, sectors and investment vehicles, especially qualitative comparison, is difficult and time-consuming. To further improve the effectiveness, an innovative four-level decoupled top down approach for renewable energy investment is proposed. The proposed framework is capable to identify and analyze the renewable energy global market leaders that included: (1) a group of outperforming countries with strong economic drivers and renewable energy drivers, (2) a group of renewable energy sectors that presents comparative advantages, (3) a group of renewable energy investment vehicles that outperforms other competitors, (4) and finally the most promising renewable energy investment vehicle. Results show that the decoupled top down approach both increases effectiveness and capability.

In practice, investors often prefer an index than a framework to make their investment decisions. Therefore, a composite index, so-called Renewable Energy Responsible Investment Index (RERII), is proposed. The index is capable to reflect a comprehensive assessment of existing and future conditions of renewable energy and is also capable to reveal the economic, environmental, social and country governance aspects related to renewable energy industry. In addition, it can be easily integrated into the top down and the decoupled top down strategies. The index has been applied into 50 countries with 17 indicators. Results show that the index does not only provide an effective platform for investors, but also allow the index users to perform necessary comparative analyses.

In summary, this thesis has developed comprehensive risk management and investment strategies in renewable energy industry.