More Baskets? Renewable Energy and Energy Security

Energy security increasingly becomes an issue in the face of rising worldwide energy demand and dwindling resources. Threats to energy security are seen in political instabilities of resource exporting countries, decreasing reserves, geostrategic and geopolitical factors and the structure of the relevant energy markets in terms of market power, monopolies, cartels and trusts. The European Commission has issued two Green Papers on a strategy for the security of energy supply, supporting competitive international energy market (European Commission, 2000 and 2008). The large infrastructure and gas pipeline development project Nabucco through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria that has recently been launched is motivated by the assumed increase in energy security.Energy, secruity, reneweable, baskets

Economic impacts of the RES Obligations in Austria – an Application of the Macro-Econometric Model e3.at

The year 2008 started in January (Jan 23, 2008) with ambitious European initiatives on climate change when the European Commission suggested a climate packages with new targets for energy from renewable sources (RES), for the design of the third phase of the emission trading system, for a directive on carbon capture and storage systems (CCS), for the fuel directive, and a directive on CO2 limit for new vehicles. Several of these proposed directives have been an issue of fierce discussion during the year, especially as the extent of the financial crisis gradually came to the fore and the fears of a worldwide economic crisis grew. At the end of 2008, however, the package passed the European parliament (Dec. 17, 2008) though several concessions had to be made concerning the emission trading system or the vehicle directive. However, seemingly unaffected by current fears and therefore largely unaltered the directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources in Europe passed with a rather high amount of “yes” votes of the whole package, indicating that the support for energy from renewable sources still seems strong. The Directive “establishes a common framework for the promotion of energy from renewable sources. It sets mandatory national targets for the overall share of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption of energy and for the share of energy from renewable sources in transport.” (COM(2008)0019 – C6-0046/2008 – 2008/0016(COD) The national overall targets are set individually for each country and the required increases compared to 2005 are as low as 22% (Sweden, Latvia) or as high as more than 1000% in the case of the UK (c.f. full table in the Appendix). Each country will have to develop a strategy for a sustainable pathway to reach the target. Though the strategic decisions will be on the national levels for each country, the knowledge of the targets for the European Community provides useful information to back the decision. Domestic support of RES technologies can induce a lead market and create international export opportunities. Observing the strategies of the other EC member states will affect the choice of the national efficient and effective policy mix. Austria is an interesting case study insofar as it already uses renewable energy to a large extent (23.3% in 2005) and still has to increase it by almost 50% to 34% by 2020. This increase will come with large necessary investments and will require a combined energyefficiency strategy. To answer the question how and at what overall economic costs in terms of GDP and employment effects the targets can be reached a scenario has to be developed and tested with the help of a model that reflects the economic and environmental interdependences. Therefore, to analyze the overall effects a highly interdependent resource economic modeling approach is needed. The macro-econometric model e3.at has been developed to answer such questions. The article is organized as following. Section 2 describes the model e3.at. Section 3 suggests an energy-efficiency scenario that meets the EC’s targets. Section 4 presents modeling results and section 5 concludes.Austria, Macro-Econometric Model, e3.at, Economic impacts, RES Obligations

Beschäftigungsstruktur im Bereich Erneuerbarer Energien

Die Beschäftigung in der EE-Branche hat in den letzten Jahren stetig zugenommen. Wenngleich die konsolidierten Zahlen für 2007 noch ausstehen, hat eine erste Abschätzung im Frühjahr 2008 gezeigt, dass wiederum von einer Zunahme von 6% gegenüber dem Vorjahr ausgegangen werden kann (Kratzat et al. 2008). Neben den absoluten Zahlen ist jedoch interessant, wie diese Beschäftigten zusammengesetzt sind. Welche Hindernisse sieht die Branche beispielsweise, geeignete Fachkräfte zu rekrutieren und einzustellen? Wie begegnet sie einem eventuellen Fachkräftemangel durch Ausbildungsaktivitäten? Benötigt sie hierbei eventuell zielgerichtete Unterstützung? Wie unterscheidet sich die Branche von den sonstigen Wirtschaftszweigen in Deutschland?Erneuerbare Energie, Beschäftigung, Beschäftigungsstruktur

20% by 2020? Economy-wide impacts of energy efficiency improvement in Germany

The paper presents results of the implementation of an efficiency strategy in Germany until 2020 which is focused on cost-effective measures. The efficiency measures are calculated in bottom-up models and translated into a top-down macro-economic model. The comparison to a business as usual simulation shows some economy-wide rebound effects of about 17% of the overall energy savings. The analysis is limited to 2020. Given that an efficiency strategy is a long-term strategy, this puts the results on the rather conservative side. The results clearly show that improved energy efficiency results in a variety of positive effects on the economy and the environment. These range from reduced greenhouse gas emissions to improved competitiveness of firms and budget savings for consumers to economy wide impacts like additional employment and economic growth. Even the consideration of rebound effects did not change this picture significantly. Thus, exploiting the huge potential stemming from cost-effective efficiency measures should have high priority for the design of energy and climate policies.energy efficiency, bottom up scenario analysis, climate policy

Die Modelle ASTRA und PANTA RHEI zur Abschätzung gesamtwirtschaftlicher Wirkungen umweltpolitischer Instrumente - ein Vergleich

Zur Abschätzung der ökonomischen Wirkungen umweltpolitischer Instrumente werden oft komplexe gesamtwirtschaftliche Modelle eingesetzt, um die vielfältigen Anpassungsreaktionen der Volkswirtschaft auf Preisänderungen, Investitionsimpulse, geänderte Exporttätigkeiten und andere ökonomische Stellgrößen in ihrer Gesamtheit abzubilden. Der erstmalige direkte Vergleich der zur Abschätzung energiepolitischer Fragestellungen eingesetzten Modelle ASTRA (FhG-ISI) und PANTA RHEI (GWS) trägt dazu bei, die Kommunikation der jeweiligen Ergebnisse zu vereinfachen. Die Modelle werden anhand verschiedener Kriterien (Datenstand, Modellansatz, Modellphilosophie) zunächst gegenübergestellt. In einem nächsten Vergleichsschritt werden die quantitativen Ergebnisse verschiedener bereits durchgeführter Modellierungsarbeiten für Deutschland und die EU verglichen und schließlich parallele Simulationen unter gleichen Vorgaben gerechnet. Der Modellvergleich zwischen PANTA RHEI und ASTRA zeigt, dass beide Modelle zuverlässige und auf nationaler, sowie europäischer Ebene bereits vielfach angewandte Werkzeuge zur Abschätzung der ökonomischen Wirkungen umweltpolitischer Maßnahmen sind. PANTA RHEI bildet dabei den Energieverbrauch des Wohnungssektors sowie der Industrie und die erneuerbaren Energien detaillierter ab, ASTRA den des Verkehrssektors.Modellvergleich, Abschätzung umweltpolitischer Instrumente, Simulationsrechnung