Renewable energy investment and job creation, a cross-sectoral assessment for the Czech Republic with reference to EU benchmarks

0466537 - ÚGN 2018 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Dvořák, Petr - Martinát, S. - Van der Horst, D. - Frantál, Bohumil - Turečková, K.
Renewable energy investment and job creation, a cross-sectoral assessment for the Czech Republic with reference to EU benchmarks.
Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews. Roč. 69, č. 69 (2017), s. 360-368. ISSN 1364-0321. E-ISSN 1879-0690
R&D Projects: GA ČR GA16-04483S
Institutional support: RVO:68145535
Keywords : renewable energy * green jobs * rural employment * financial incentives
OECD category: Environmental sciences (social aspects)
Impact factor: 9.184, year: 2017
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032116309121

The development of renewable energy sources has been primarily justified on the ground of environmental policies and energy security, but new jobs opportunities and establishment of new economy sectors may be equally important co-benefits from investments in this sector. The main goal of this paper is to assess the employment benefits of investments in renewable energy in the Czech Republic. We examine the level and rate of the development of the renewable energy sector in the Czech Republic in terms of ('green‘) job creation for the period 2008–2013, in comparison to data from other EU countries, including Germany as a leading early investor in renewables. Whilst the deployment of renewable energy in the Czech Republic has succeeded to create a significant number of jobs (more than 20 000 employees in 2010), our analysis illustrates a strong dependency of job creation on the continuation of financial incentives. We also find that biomass and waste energy processing offer the highest employment per MWh, which benefits employment in (economically fragile) rural areas. We discuss the question of competitiveness of a country that was not amongst the early adopters of renewables, arguing that the technical skills of the labour force in the Czech Republic provide a potential for more sustained investments in the sector.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0264815