Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI

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  • Publication
    Energy efficiency and the direct and indirect effects of energy audits and implementation support programmes in Germany
    ( 2021)
    Schubert, Torben orcid-logo
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    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
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    Plötz, Patrick orcid-logo
    Energy audits help to increase energy efficiency in industry and have proven effective in many studies. Additional implementation support programmes providing financial incentives have been developed to not only support audits but also to overcome financial barriers to energy efficiency investments. Because the different types of programmes coexist, we argue that a precise analysis of their effects must explicitly model them together, demonstrating non-trivial direct and indirect effects of both audits and financial programmes on the adoption of energy efficiency measures. We corroborate the presence of these direct and indirect effects with data on German firms, all of which have participated in an energy audit programme and some of which have additionally received financial implementation support. Audits not only affect the adoption of energy efficiency measures directly, they also increase the likelihood of receiving financial implementation support, which in turn increases the adoption rate. Furthermore, our findings highlight that consultancy during implementation is an important factor for adoption. Accordingly, additional supporting policies should be considered in future energy audits, for example to ensure assistance during implementation.
  • Publication
    Macroeconomic impact of the German energy transition and its distribution by sectors and regions
    ( 2019)
    Sievers, Luisa
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    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
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    Pfaff, Matthias
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    Schaffer, Axel
    Macroeconomic impacts such as changes in economic structures and employment are very important when evaluating the energy transition in societal terms. We employ a macroeconomic model that accounts for regional, economic and sectoral features. The model results show how the overall positive net impacts of the energy transition in Germany - energy efficiency and renewable energies - on economic growth and employment up to 2030 are distributed across sectors and regions. The biggest relative increases in value added occur in construction, real estate and electricity generation; the biggest decrease is in mining of lignite. Significant effects mainly result from changes in the heat and transport sectors, while the transition in the electricity sector entails smaller impacts. The latter are, however, relevant to the regional distribution: The model results suggest that especially northern and eastern German federal states will benefit economically from the energy transition because they offer attractive locations for investments. At the same time, these states are less affected by decreasing conventional energy generation. Moreover, the impact of rising electricity prices is less negative here than in the other federal states because of their lower electricity intensity in production. In summary, the energy transition represents an opportunity for these regions to strengthen their economies.
  • Publication
    A concept to assess the costs and benefits of renewable energy use and distributional effects among actors: The example of Germany
    ( 2016)
    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
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    Held, Anne
    ;
    Resch, Gustav
    This paper describes a concept for the detailed assessment of the costs and benefits of renewable energy technologies deployment. A first quantitative impact assessment of German renewable energy technologies use is conducted from a historical perspective based on this comprehensive method. It includes costs and benefits at three different levels - energy system, micro- and macro-economic. The findings suggest that, at the system level, the generation costs in the electricity and heat sector are partly compensated by positive effects mainly from avoided emissions due to the use of renewable energy technologies in the electricity and heat sector. On the electricity market, small power consumers bear a very large share of the policy costs, while others might even profit from renewable energy technologies use. However, a comprehensive assessment that accounts for all the different negative and positive effects in the long term, including distributional effects, is more challenging. The concept applied here allows a differentiated comparison of a wide range of effects including aggregated costs and benefits as well as how these are distributed across different economic actors.
  • Publication
    A prospective assessment of costs and benefits of renewable energy use in the European Union
    ( 2016)
    Resch, Gustav
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    Welisch, Marijke
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    Liebmann, Lukas
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    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
    ;
    Held, Anne
    This article presents the outcomes of an assessment of expected costs and benefits of future renewable energy use in the European Union by 2020 and beyond. A binding European Union-wide renewable energy systems target of achieving at least 27% renewable energy systems share in gross final energy demand by 2030 was adopted by the Council of the European Union in October 2014. This has to be seen as an important first step in defining the framework for renewable energy systems post-2020. Other steps, like a clear concept for and an agreement on the effort sharing across Member States have to follow. For doing so, clarity on associated costs and benefits of the future renewable energy systems expansion across European Union Member Sta-tes appears highly beneficial. The aim of this article is to contribute to the renewable energy systems policy debate, providing an indication of costs and benefits resulting from increased renewable energy systems deployment within the European Union in the 2020 and 2030 frameworks. Within the discussion of costs and benefits, we follow a standardized concept that takes into account the diversity of policies in force and depicts the cost and benefits of renewable energy systems deployment at different le-vels, avoiding double counting or mixing up of effects. The outcomes of the analysis presented here remain, however, incomplete, focussing on certain indicators and on a related cross-country comparison rather than presenting a complete overview on expected impacts of future renewable energy systems deployment within the European Union.
  • Publication
    Risks and cost of capital for onshore wind energy investments in EU countries
    ( 2016)
    Angelopoulos, Dimitrios
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    Brückmann, Robert
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    Jirous, Filip
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    Konstantinaviciute, Inga
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    Noothout, Paul
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    Psarras, John
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    Tesnière, Lucie
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    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
    The national binding targets, set for renewable energy deployment at European Union (EU), call for extended clean energy investments. Renewable energy projects require high up-front expenditures including, in many cases, considerable financing costs. The main objective of this paper is to elaborate and apply a methodology that allows assessing the most important risk categories related to renewable energy investments. The cornerstone of this approach is the weighted average cost of capital, which has been extracted for new onshore wind projects in EU-28 member states based on diverse methods e.g. Capital Asset Pricing Model. Moreover, to validate the model results, a series of interviews with renewable energy project developers and financers across the EU has been conducted. The results show that, following the country risk, policy-related risks exert the highest impact on the cost of capital. Moreover, there are significant discrepancies between different geographical regions and market deployment levels. To support policy makers' decision on effective risk-reducing policy designs, the assessment could also be extended to other renewable energy technologies.
  • Publication
    Renewable energy deployment in Europe up to 2030 and the aim of a triple dividend
    ( 2016)
    Duscha, Vicki
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    Fougeyrollas, Arnaud
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    Nathani, Carsten
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    Pfaff, Matthias
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    Ragwitz, Mario
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    Resch, Gustav
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    Schade, Wolfgang
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    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
    ;
    Walz, Rainer orcid-logo
    Renewable energy sources (RES) play a key role in the European Commission's 2030 Climate and Energy Framework, which aims for a low-carbon economy that increases the security of the EU's energy supplies and creates new opportunities for growth and jobs, among other benefits. We assess whether renewable energy deployment in Europe can provide this ""triple dividend"", at which ambition levels of 2030 RES targets and what the role of the support policy scheme for electricity is. We apply two types of models: a detailed techno-economic sector model of the deployment of RES and two macroeconomic models. Our findings suggest that up to 2030 our triple-dividend hypothesis holds even under a declining role of Europe as technology provider for the rest of the world. Additional emission reductions of up to 1040 Mt CO2, as compared to a baseline scenario in 2030, are possible. Demand for fossil fuels can likewise be reduced due to the deployment of renewable energy sources by up to 150 Mtoe. More ambiguous is the order of magnitude of the effects on GDP and employment, which differs noticeably depending on the economic theory applied in the different models. Nevertheless, both models predict slightly higher GDP and employment in 2030 when implementing ambitious RES targets.
  • Publication
    Basel III and solvency II: Are the risk margins for investments in PV and wind adequate?
    ( 2013)
    Breitschopf, Barbara orcid-logo
    ;
    Pudlik, Martin
    Worldwide investments in renewable energy (RE) have doubled between 2007 and 2011 while the financial crisis has led to stricter regulations. The paper describes the impacts of risk provision requirements on financing costs of RE investments. The risk assessment indicates that under the given conditions in Germany, policy and market risks are considered to be zero. Technical, performance and other risks are to be around 1.6 to 2.1 % p.a. So therefore, yield risk is left as the only determining default risk of RE investments. The risk provisions of RE investments are compared to the RE default risks by applying a simple cash-flow model. The findings show that risk provisions are not adequate for default risks and increase financing costs, and hence investment costs, in German PV and onshore wind generation plant, by up to EUR 13 million for large PV plants and EUR 8 million for wind parks (2011).