مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد رویکرد گزینه ای برای تولید برق تجدید پذیر در فیلیپین – اسپرینگر 2018

Environmental problems associated with emissions from fossil fuel, along with limited supply, volatile prices, and energy security, prompted developed and developing countries to find more reliable and sustainable sources of energy. Renewable energy (RE) sources, being abundant, inexhaustible, cleaner, and readily available, emerge as a promising alternative energy source. According to International Energy Agency (IEA), RE accounted to 13.7% of the world energy generation mix in 2015 [1]. With a rapid decline in RE costs, this percentage mix is expected to double by 2040 [2]. In the Philippines, the development and optimal use of RE resources is an essential part of the country’s low emission strategy and is vital to addressing climate change, energy security, and access to energy [3]. In 2015, renewable energy accounts to 25% of the country’s total electricity generation mix, only 1% from wind and solar energy [4]. Since the country is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels, sudden changes in the price of fuels in the world market may eventually affect the country’s energy security. Renewable energy serves as a longterm solution by introducing localized RE sources. However, despite the country’s huge potential for RE generation, investments in RE projects are challenged by competitive prices of fossil fuels, more mature technology for fossil fuels, and very high investment cost for renewable energy. These give us the motivation to make a study that analyzes the attractiveness of RE investments to address the country’s concern on energy sufficiency and sustainability. One of the most common techniques in analyzing investment projects is the net present value (NPV). This technique is widely used by developers, financial institutions, and government agencies under the condition of definite cash flow. Since RE investment in emerging economies involves high risk from volatile energy prices and changing RE technologies, NPV undervalues investment opportunities and thus considered inappropriate for assessing RE projects in developing countries including the Philippines [5]. Real options approach (ROA) overcomes this limitation as it combines risks and uncertainties with flexibility in the timing of investment as a potential factor that gives additional value to the project [6]. Recent studies use ROA renewable energy investment particularly for wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), hydropower, concentrated solar power (CSP), and combination (hybrid) of RE with uncertainties in non-RE cost, certified emission reduction (CER), feed-in tariff (FIT), energy production, operations and maintenance (O&M) cost, research and development (R&D) grants, production tax credit (PTC), RE credit (REC), among others (see Table 1). This paper contributes to the existing literature by proposing a ROA framework for analyzing RE projects for developing countries, particularly, island countries that are highly dependent on imported oil for electricity generation. While previous studies proposed a full system switch to RE [7] or applied the ROA model to large-scale RE projects [8–11], this study takes the case of Palawan island in the Philippines and focuses on a smaller scale project which is particularly more realistic to developing countries. Whereas previous works’ approaches used coal and gas for fuel price uncertainty [7, 9, 10, 12], this work uses uncertainty in oil prices as the world energy mix is dominated by liquid fuel, more developing countries are dependent on imported oil, and that investments in renewable energy is affected more by volatility in oil prices than coal prices. Finally, this paper proposes an externality tax for using fossil fuels as it more applicable in developing countries than introducing CER price, PTC, REC, CO2 price, and emission/externality cost as proposed in previous works [7, 9, 10, 13, 14]. Applying ROA, this study aims to evaluate whether investing in RE is a better option than continue using diesel for electricity generation by considering various uncertainties in diesel fuel price, local electricity prices, and imposing externality tax for using diesel. This finally aims to recommend various government actions to address environmental problem, supply chain, and national security regarding energy