Green jobs? Economic impacts of renewable energy in Germany

The labor market implications of large investment into renewable energy (RE) are analyzed in this text. Although a growing RE industry can be observed in Germany the overall effect of large increases of RE based electricity and heat generating technologies on the German economy require a careful model based analysis. The applied model PANTA RHEI has been used among others to evaluate the German energy concept in 2010. It takes positive and negative impacts of RE into account. The paper shows the overall effects under different assumptions for fossil fuel prices, domestic installations and international trade. The results are sensitive to assumptions on the development of RE world markets and German exports to these markets. Almost all of these scenarios exhibit positive net employment effects. Under medium assumptions net employment of RE expansion will reach around 150 thousand in 2030. Only with assumptions for German RE exports below today's level, net impacts are slightly negative. Gross employment will increase from 340 thousand in 2009 to between 500 and 600 thousand in 2030. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.