Renewable sources as a business opportunity for entrepreneurship: The case of wind farms in Bulgaria.

Abstract

Varieties of researches have been conducted throughout the last years on the topic of the renewable sources of energy. This has been the goal of all the countries; however the Balkan countries, which are perceived as less developed, compared to the Western European countries are falling behind with the development in this sector. Researches have been conducted in Bulgaria, but they don’t cover the general picture of the country, but the niches in which the entrepreneurs are interested in. The aim of this dissertation was to assess the business opportunities for entrepreneurship in the sector or renewable sources of energy and especially in wind farm energy production in the country in general. Bulgaria has a variety of mountains, lowlands, rivers and a sea, which provides the country potential resources for the developing any type of renewable energy business. However wind is not constant and can be measured in speed and velocity, which are the factors that are determining the productivity of the wind mills, that’s why a further research was done in terms of examining the opportunities to all of the participants in the development of the business, also the objective and subjective preconditions were assessed in order to have the overall picture of the sector. In order to analyze the sector qualitative research was done. The finding from the qualitative research done among four wind farm companies in a way of interview, combined with the theory and official data about the wind resources in the country determined that the country is offering significant opportunity for business opportunity in the sector. The research has shown that the sector is offering business opportunities for any of the involved parties, such as importers and retailers, government and the entrepreneurs of the wind farms. However the main beneficiaries are the owners of the wind farms, great investment is demanded, but it is proving long term business stability ensuring high profitability. The objective and subjective preconditions are reachable; however it was determined that bureaucracy and requirements are influencing the establishment of the business, hence the entrepreneurs prefer to be independent of governmental institution such as EU and to invest own assets or to take private loan from banks. Direct foreign investment was determined to be beneficial for the wind farms in the cases examined due to the availability of new technology and money invested in the economy of Bulgaria.