Offtake Strategy Design for Wind Energy Projects under Uncertainty

dc.contributor.advisorCui, Qingbinen_US
dc.contributor.authorZhu, Xinyuanen_US
dc.contributor.departmentCivil Engineeringen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2014-10-17T05:36:06Z
dc.date.available2014-10-17T05:36:06Z
dc.date.issued2014en_US
dc.description.abstractEnergy use from wind, solar, and other renewable sources is a public policy at the federal and state levels to address environment, energy, and sustainability concerns. As the cost of renewable energy is still relatively high compared to fossil fuels, it remains a critical challenge to make renewable energy cost competitive, without relying on public subsidies. During recent years, much advance has been made in our understanding of technology innovations and cost structure optimization of renewable energy. A knowledge gap exists on the other side of the equation - revenue generation. Considering the complexity and stochastic nature of renewable energy projects, there is great potential to optimize the revenue generation mechanisms in a systematic fashion for improved profitability and growth. This dissertation examines two primary revenue generation mechanisms, or offtake strategies, used in wind energy development projects in the U.S. While a short-term offtake strategy allows project developers to benefit from price volatility in the wholesale spot market for profit maximization, a long-term offtake strategy minimizes the market risk exposure through a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). With Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) introduced as a risk measure, this dissertation first develops two stochastic programming models for optimizing offtake designs under short and long-term strategies respectively. Furthermore, this study also proposes a hybrid offtake strategy that combines both short and long-term strategies. The two-level stochastic model demonstrates the merit of the hybrid strategy, i.e. obtaining the maximized profit while maintaining the flexibility of balancing and hedging against market and resource risks efficiently. The Cape Wind project in Massachusetts has been used as an example to demonstrate the model validity and potential applications in optimizing its revenue streams. The analysis shows valuable implications on the optimal design of renewable energy project development in regard to offtake arrangements.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/M2NW28
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/15961
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEnergyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledOperations researchen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledEnvironmental economicsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledOfftakeen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledOptimizationen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledRenewable Energyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledUncertaintyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledWind Projectsen_US
dc.titleOfftake Strategy Design for Wind Energy Projects under Uncertaintyen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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