Abstract: Normally, R&D investment strategies for new technologies of renewable energy power generation have different effects on enterprise values and consumer surplus in an opposite manner resulting in a challenge on the scientific formulation of the R&D incentive policies for social welfare-based renewable energy power generation. For the asymmetric enterprises intending to monopolize the emerging markets of clean energy by the R&D of new technologies for renewable energy power generation, it is required to choose the option game and the social welfare model in combination with investment opportunities and analyze the social welfare and related subsidy policies affecting the changes of such social welfare as well as the dynamic characteristics in many other factors through numerical modeling. In addition, the corresponding recommendations for the R&D incentive policies of social welfare-based renewable energy power generation have been proposed. The results indicate that if the aim is to maximize the social welfare, in the application of each combination of the R&D subsidiesfor new generation technologies and the feed-in tariff schemes, the greater the R&D capability gap between enterprises are, the greater the initial value of new technologies for renewable energy power generation and the higher the R&D cost will be. In such case, the government should encourage renewable energy enterprises to cooperate in R&D, otherwise the competition is required to be encouraged. With the increase of the feed-in tariff, it is better to greatly encourage the competitive R&D in enterprises. Both the R&D subsidies and the feed-in tariff will improve socialwelfare within certain limits. The internal comovement relation among the optimal investment time, portfolio of power price subsidy policy and social benefits of renewable resource power R&D investment is revealed so as to provide valuable decision-making reference for the government’s effective incentive and management of renewable energy power.

Key words: social welfare, renewable energy power generation, option game, R&D incentive policies, subsidy