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Impacts of the Expansion Plans for Renewable Energies until 2020 on Value Added and Employment

Prior to the energy summit of the German federal government and the states on November 2nd, 2012, the German government proposed to limit support for wind energy and bioenergy generation similar to the cap imposed on the photovoltaic sector. In contrast, the federal states have ambitious plans for the expansion of wind energy. It was against this background, that Greenpeace Deutschland commissioned the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) to analyze economic implications with regard to the expected employment and value added effects by renewable energies. For this, the effects of the two relevant expansion scenarios in the year 2020 were determined. First, Scenario C in the scenario framework for the NEP 2013 according to the expansion targets of the federal states. Second, the Scenario 2011 A in the long-term scenarios 2011 published by the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, which approximately meets the expansion target aspired by the German government. The difference between these two scenarios is mainly due to the varying increase in installed wind energy capacity. The results show that the expansion of onshore wind energy, according to the targets set by the states, can generate significant effects of value added and employment in Germany.

IÖW Project Team