The development and construction of mountain photovoltaic (PV) projects have become an effective approach to conserve land resources and promote the sustainable development of PV power generation.However

due to the variability of project boundary conditions

it’s required to further research that how to evaluate the economic feasibility of mountain PV projects from a full life-cycle perspective.A 650 MWp mountain PV project is investigated as an example.It creates an integrated economic evaluation system by combining the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and the financial internal rate of return (FIRR).The goal is to evaluate the economic characteristics of the project and verify its economic feasibility considering the impact of investment per kilowatt

electricity output

operating costs

and feed-in tariff in order to establish the safety margins that ensure economic feasibility.The results indicate that the LCOE is 0.271 5 CNY/kWh based on a 25-year operational period

which is lower than the given feed-in tariff;The FIRR is 7.61%

which exceeds the benchmark rate.Meanwhile

there are certain safety thresholds corresponding to the project boundary conditions.When investment per kilowatt exceeds by 33.2%

electricity output decreases by 23.9%

operating costs increase 3.48 times

or feed-in tariff drops by 9.62%

the project will reach its economic safety threshold.It has been proved that the project remains economically feasibility within these safety boundaries and possesses significant development value.