Tranforming energy systems to fulfill the needs of a low-carbon economy requires large investments in renewable electricity production (RES-E). Recent literature underlines the need to take a closer look at the composition of the RES-E investor group in order to understand the motives and investment processes of different types of investors. However, existing energy policies generally consider RES-E investments made on a regional or national level, and target investors who evaluate their RES-E investments according to least-cost high-profit criteria. We present empirical evidence to show that RES-E investments are made by a heterogeneous group of investors, that a variety of investors exist and that their formation varies among the different types of renewable sources. This has direct implications for our understanding of the investment process in RES-E and for the study of motives and driving forces of RES-E investors. We introduce a multi-dimensional framework for analyzing differences between categories of investors, which not only considers to the standard economic dimension which is predominant in the contemporary energy literature, but also considers the entrepreneurship, innovation-adoption and institutional dimensions. The framework emphasizes the influence of four main investor-related factors on the investment process which should be studied in future research: motives, background, resources and personal characteristics.

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SUMMARYA deregulation of the electricity market in Europe will result in increased competition among the power-producing companies. They will therefore carefully estimate the "nancial risk in an investment in new power-producing capability. One part of the risk assessment is to perform a sensitivity analysis. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis using factorial design, resulting in an assessment of the most important technical and economical factors a!ecting an investment in a gas turbine combined cycle and a steam cycle "red by woodchips. The study is performed using a simulation model that optimizes the operation of existing power plants and potential new investments to ful"l the desired heat demand. The local utility system analysed is a Swedish district heating system with 655 GWh y\ heat demand. The conclusion is that to understand which of the technical and economical factors a!ect the investment, it is not su$cient to investigate the parameters of the studied plant, but also the parameters related to the competing plants. Both the individual e!ects of the factors and the e!ect of their interaction should be investigated. For the energy system studied the price of natural gas, price of woodchips and investment cost have the major in#uence on the pro"tability of the investment.