Wind or solar photovoltaic energy: How to select renewable energy to invest?

¹ Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
² Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

^* Corresponding author: daniela.borissova@iict.bas.bg

Abstract

Solar and wind energy as environmentally friendly and renewable energy sources, play an essential role in achieving sustainable development of the energy sector. Their inexhaustible resources attract many and different investments. On the other hand, the development of various policies aimed at decreasing carbon footprints also contributes to the attractiveness of such investments. That is why this article analyses some of the main factors influencing the profitability of wind and solar photovoltaic farms. These two factors are the flat cost of electricity, which is the average cost of energy produced over the life of the wind and solar photovoltaic farms, and the efficiency of wind and solar photovoltaic farms, expressed in terms of the energy generated per unit of installed capacity. An analysis of wind and solar photovoltaic farm efficiency was conducted for different countries based on publicly available data from 2011 to 2023. The results show that the wind farms have higher efficiency compared to solar photovoltaic farms, as for both sources of renewable energy, the trend is toward increased efficiency.