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The economic significance of renewables continuously increases. Photo: Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft
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Nearly 370,000 Jobs in Renewables
In 2010, 367,400 people in Germany worked in the field of renewable energies. Their number thus increased by approximately eight percent compared to the previous year. This is the result the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) presented together with the German Institute for Economic Research (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung - DIW), the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg - ZSW) and the GWS - Institute of Economic Structures Research (Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftliche Strukturforschung), who, upon commission from the Federal Environment Ministry, jointly investigated the development of the job market.
Further Development of Renewables Will Create More Jobs
With the further development of renewable energies, an industry developed in Germany, the economic significance of which continuously increases. This is what energy researchers from the Systems Analysis Department at the DLR Institute of Technical Thermodynamics and their project partners concluded. In addition to the growing number of employees in the industry, investments of around 26.6 billion Euro in facilities for the utilisation of renewables in Germany also increased by a quarter when compared with the past year. The turnover of enterprises with production sites in Germany increased by 20 percent. As a result, the gross employment rate in this industry increased by approximately 28,000 to a total of 367,400 people.
Of these, a third works in the field of biomass (122,000). In addition to directly and indirectly employed workforce in plant construction, this estimate also takes into consideration those employed in operations and maintenance as well as in the provision of combustibles and bio fuels (agriculture and forestry). Solar energy likewise contributed to employment rates by nearly a third (120,900). In the field of wind energy, the employment number declined for the first time in 2010 due to nationally and internationally weak markets. With 26 percent (96,100 employed), wind energy thus ranked third. The geothermal industry contributed to employment with approximately 13,300 persons employed (4 percent), followed by hydropower with 7,600 persons employed (2 percent).
A total of 359,900 people work in the industry itself, 7,500 people are employed in publicly funded research and administration. 70 percent of these jobs can be attributed to the effect of the German Renewable Energies Act (EEG).
Editor's note: In 2008, only 238,000 persons continued to be employed in the conventional energies industry. (Quelle: DENA)
