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| Germany Leading the Future of Renewable Energy |
| The potential of photovoltaics, wind power and biomass soars since German law passed |
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Hartmut Kaiser (emperor)  |
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Published 2006-05-29 15:46 (KST) |
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Out of more than 6 billion people living in the world, only a fraction has unlimited access to electric current. Since the supply of fossil fuels is limited, renewable energy could provide a source of never-ending, environmentally-friendly produced electricity.
Sooner than most countries, except Japan, Germany, has promoted an agenda to foster renewable energy.
In the year 1990, Germany produced 43.1 million kilowatts per hour of electricity out of wind energy, 1.422 out of biomass and 0.6 mio kWh from solar energy (photovoltaics). The respective numbers for last year are: 26.5 billion kWh from wind energy, 1.1 million kWh from biomass and 600 million kWh from solar energy. To make the picture complete, energy production from hydropower has also significantly improved and a small fraction from geothermal energy has also been added.
Last year, 10.3 percent of Germany's electricity came from renewable energy. The driving force behind this was a German law called the "Renewable Energy Act" (EEG in German), which regulated the price that private investors in renewable energy could achieve for their "energy harvest," or the current they sold to the energy suppliers. This law went into effect on in April 2000 and attracted a lot of attention from governments from all over the world.
Among others, the governments of China and Spain have implemented similar laws, and even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California wants to give a boost to renewable energy projects.
This law proved to be a big boon for the ailing German labor market. In 2005, more than 170,000 people in Germany held a job in renewable energy businesses, and the number continues to rise. Many of these jobs are in small- and medium-sized enterprises, like craftsmen who install solar panels on roofs.
Renewable energy projects are just starting to be used on a wide scale in emerging countries like India and China, and the German industry (like the Japanese) is about to seize the chance and become one of the planets' leading exporters of photovoltaics, wind energy equipment and other related devices.
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©2006 OhmyNews
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