Identification and analysis of impact factors on the economic feasibility of wind energy investments

The growing energy demand in the world and the concern for environmentally damaging energy sources have led to an increased interest in seeking alternative renewable energy sources, such as wind energy. Furthermore, choosing effective locations for wind power plants has become a key issue in project planning. However, prior to implementation, such projects should be confirmed as economically viable. This article is a systematic review of the literature carried out with the aim to identify the main factors that impact the economic feasibility of wind energy investments. The search was performed in the ISI Web of Science (WoS) electronic database, from which 120 papers were extracted after a selection process, and were analyzed individually. As a result of the review analysis, 23 factors that have an impact on feasibility analysis were identified and organized in five categories: location (surface roughness, turbine location), economic (investment costs, operation and maintenance costs, avoided energy cost, depreciation, land rent), political (interest rates and taxes, energy sales price, inflation, financing conditions), climatic (wind speed, air density, temperature, air pressure), and technical (turbine height, installed wind power, lifetime, efficiency, rotor diameter, operation time, number of turbine blades, construction time). These factors can directly impact the cost of capital and/or energy production, affecting the economic viability of wind farms. In the last decade, there has been an exponential growth in publications about economic feasibility of wind investments. The wind investments growth has been accompanied by financial studies about this subject. This study provides insights on the main variables used in wind energy feasibility studies. The results may assist researchers and investors to identify the key parameters that are being examined in the literature, and to evaluate which ones should be considered in their study to ensure a sustainable development of power generation through the wind source.