A roadmap for selecting host countries of wind energy projects in the framework of the clean development mechanism

This paper presents a stepwise evaluation procedure for assessing the attractiveness of different developing countries to host projects on clean technologies in the framework of the clean development mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol (KP). The present analysis focuses on wind energy projects and examines a set of developing countries in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Northern Africa. The proposed approach proceeds to the gradual exclusion of candidate countries that do not satisfy fundamental technical and economic conditions influencing the profitability of the project. In the last stage, the countries presenting the highest return are evaluated with respect to a wider set of criteria denoting the ease of making business in each country. The outcome of the evaluation procedure is to identify the most appealing investment opportunities deserving a more detailed techno-economic analysis following the guidelines of the CDM. The obtained results are also useful in order to highlight the most critical factors influencing the economic return of wind energy projects under the framework of the flexible mechanisms of the KP.