Wind Energy Economic Model – Capital Project Analysis Tool

At present, in the Czech Republic, 60 % of electric energy is being produced by coal-fired power stations, 35 % is being produced by nuclear power stations and the rest of electric energy is being produced by hydraulic power plants. Such a situation on the power market negatively influences the environment because of the extensive emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHG). GHG allow solar radiation to enter the Earth´s atmosphere, but prevent the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth´s surface from escaping. Instead, this outgoing radiation is absorbed by the greenhouse gases and then partially re-emitted as thermal radiation back to Earth, warming the surface. That is why our country intensifies its investments into the GHG-reduction projects and especially into the clean energy projects and renewable energy technologies.The main representative of this politics in the Czech Republic is ČEZ Group, namely ČEZ Obno-vitelné zdroje, an internationally operating grouping which ranks among the ten largest European companies on the power market. To ensure the financial viability of the wind energy projects, it is necessary to analyse all tech-nical, natural and economic criteria of each project and to summarize all the necessary data to support decision on its efficiency within the specific conditions of the Czech Republic.In order to evaluate each proposed wind energy project properly, ČEZ Obnovitelné zdroje first used the RETScreen International economic model developed in Canada. However, this model doesn´t reflect the specific Czech economic and natural conditions. This article deals with a wind energy economic model developed in Microsoft Excel at Technical university of Liberec. The aim of this model is• to provide a practical decision-making tool that reduces total costs of wind energy projects, • to help financial managers make better, comparable and quicker decisions by a user-friendly tool which takes into account specific Czech conditions and can speak Czech language (this article introduces the English version of this tool to be understandable to the readers of Partie Double),• to enable its users to make and see all cash flows associated with wind energy projects more transparent.