Parliamentary State Secretary Michael Müller: Lasting impetus for exports, growth and employment
Employment in the renewable energies sector has grown continually over recent years and is expected to keep growing significantly in the future. By the year 2020, the sector's workforce, currently at about 170,000 people, is expected to reach a level of at least 300,000. This forecast is a result of a recently completed research project that Michael Müller, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), presented today at a conference in Berlin. "Renewable energies are also an asset for Germany in terms of economic growth and employment", he emphasised.
Even when all conceivable negative effects on employment are taken into account, renewable energies are still expected to perform well, adding at least 70,000 permanent jobs by the year 2020. Michael Müller added "The study shows that renewable energies provide lasting impetus for exports, economic growth and employment. Renewable energies' positive impacts on the job market are expected to outweigh any possible countertrends".
The study does note that the forecast job growth will depend on whether the German market retains a stable political framework and continues to generate demand for renewable energies and to spark innovation in the sector. This, in turn, will hinge on continuation of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG) and on the rapid introduction of a similarly effective instrument in the area of heating via renewable energies, an area with considerable potential. In addition, employment effects in Germany will also depend strongly on the degree to which German companies capitalise on their currently excellent prospects in the rapidly growing global market for renewable energies. The study estimates that worldwide annual investments in renewable energy installations could climb to about 250 billion euro by 2020, from a current level of about 40 billion euro. By the year 2030, such investments could even total 460 billion euro per year.
At the same time, the study's calculations are based on the assumption that German manufacturers will capture a share of only about 6 percent, or nearly 30 billion euro, of the export market of 2030. This export-scenario assumption is a conservative one, as are the assumptions regarding price trends for renewable energies in comparison to those for conventional energies. The study's authors expressly chose conservative assumptions for both exports and prices, since both areas have significant impacts on employment effects.
The authors also modelled alternative scenarios for exports and energy prices in order to analyse the sensitivity of their assumptions. They found that even just slightly more optimistic assumptions, regarding German companies' export-market share and price trends for renewable energies yielded significantly higher job growth, reaching levels of 415,000 additional jobs (gross growth) or 180,000 additional jobs (net growth) by 2030. This figure translates into some 100,000 jobs over the result for the basic scenario for 2020.
The researchers found it difficult to calculate negative effects on employment. To obtain an unrealistic extreme, they began by assuming that virtually all of the renewable energies sector's exports would at some point cease, and that prices for conventional energies would return to their 2000-2002 levels and then remain at those levels in the long term.
The research project "Effects of the Expansion of Renewable Energies on the German Labour Market with Special Consideration of Foreign Trade" has been carried out over the past two years by Baden-Württemberg's Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen (ZSW, Stuttgart; project management), the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW, Berlin), the German Aerospace Center (DLR, Stuttgart) and the Institute of Economic Structures Research (GWS, Osnabrück). Its research bases include a survey of over 1,100 companies in the renewable energies sector, along with a range of differentiated scenarios for development of the German and global markets for renewable energies, in the categories of electricity, heat and fuels by the year 2030.
The final report on the study can be downloaded in the Internet at www.bmub.bund.de or www.erneuerbare-energien.de . There is also a 25-page summary of the study available as well as additional scientific reports on the outlook of renewable energies in the long term.