SE4Jobs Toolbox - Assessment

SE4Jobs Toolbox – Laying the foundations for a sustainable development

• Overview
• Assessment
• Actors
• Policies & Measures
• Strategic Planning

Existing Capacities

Co-benefits

Trade-offs

Tools PRODUSE EQuIP CADRE Interactive RE Toolkit AILEG HELIO ELMA

What is the issue assessment of existing capacities and potentials about? [Expand] Strategies and policies for RE and EE should be based on the systematic analysis of existing conditions and capacities within a country, so as to maximise their potential for developing markets and employment in these sectors. It is therefore important that each country develops its own assessment capacities. Why is such an assessment important for the expansion of RE and EE? [Expand] The socio-economic benefits of RE and EE have become increasingly prominent in political debates around the world, and there are numerous examples of countries successfully harnessing the potential of RE and EE to create new sources of income for broad segments of the population. Developing and emerging countries in particular have made strong, rapid progress in recent years. While their framework conditions, approaches and trajectories differ considerably, it is possible to identify some common factors that have contributed to their success. Leveraging each jurisdiction’s potential requires a coherent and comprehensive policy framework that mobilizes investment in the RE and EE markets. Such strategies are often difficult to develop, as they cut across political, sectoral and institutional boundaries. Moreover, they tend to be contested by vested interests related to conventional energies. Frequent arguments against policies for and investments in RE and EE include: Only rich industrialised countries can afford to develop RE sources; Producing significant amounts of RE and/or applying EE on a large scale would increase the price of energy, negatively impacting on economic competitiveness and disproportionally affecting low-income families; RE and EE development is most likely to create jobs abroad, as it mostly benefits foreign companies that are already active in these markets. Rather than benefiting companies at home, it would increase employment in other more established countries with stronger export potential. Job creation in the RE and EE sectors would be offset by job losses in conventional sectors or lead to opportunity costs that result in negative net effects. To counter such arguments, it is extremely important to assess the actual potential of RE and EE to create positive net effects based on local value added and employment. Such assessments not only help decision-makers to justify measures to support these sectors in general; they also help to determine which aspects (technologies, parts of the value chain, etc.) are likely to produce the greatest benefits and returns on investments. When assessing existing capacities for or the potential positive effects of expanding RE/EE, it is essential to use appropriate and reliable data and methods. The next section outlines different data sources and methods that you can use to assess the socio-economic effects of expanding RE/EE, and illustrates them with successful cases of how they have been used around the world. What are key questions for addressing the issue of assessing existing capacities and potentials? [Expand] The expansion of RE and EE has major implications for many other areas of the economy besides the energy sector. In view of this, it is important to assess countries’ natural and human potentials for developing markets for RE and EE. The following questions illustrate the range of factors that have to be taken into consideration when developing RE/EE markets and employment in your country: What are the natural conditions for utilizing RE (e.g. intensity, periodicity and distribution of solar and wind, availability of biomass and hydro-power)? What are the key features of the energy system (basic supply and demand structures, price structures, grid characteristics, etc.)? What are the EE potentials in different economic sectors (industry, agriculture, services, private households, etc.)? Is there a qualified workforce for designing, producing, installing and maintaining RE technologies and EE applications? Are there domestic suppliers for RE technologies and EE applications (or components thereof)? What is the current size of the domestic market, and how much might it potentially grow? Which investment, value added and employment effects can be calculated on this basis? Which international markets and parts of the value chain could domestic production serve? Which companies would represent the main competition in delivering to national markets? How could the delivery capacities of domestic producers be strengthened? How can the issue of assessing existing capacities and potentials be addressed? [Expand] To properly address and answer these various questions, substantial information and analysis are needed. Requirements range from the kind of statistical data typically generated by statistical offices or research institutes, to market analyses by businesses or industry associations, to modelling capacities to assess how different aspects of the energy system are likely to develop and what their impacts on the broader economy will be. The availability and quality of data is likely to differ significantly, depending on the sector and relevant jurisdiction. While in most countries, data is readily available for energy consumption and production, data on value added or jobs in RE and/or EE are typically not, and must be generated. In addition to existing capacities at national or subnational level, there are many regional and international organisations that gather and share data on RE and EE, serving as a further source of information and orientation. Such sources include the annual REN21 Global Status reports, IRENA’s RE data publications and its regular RE Jobs reports, the FS-UNEP reports on Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment, as well as the IEA’s Energy Efficiency Market reports and the World Energy Council’s databank on energy efficiency indicators. Other sources provide guidance and methodologies for conducting assessments (e.g. the International Labour Organisation’s publications on assessing the employment effects of RE/EE) [for tools and methods in Section 1.6]. A starting point could be to commission a comprehensive study on the potentials for RE and EE in your country, addressing the above-mentioned questions. As a next step, units in scientific agencies such as environmental agencies may build up capacities for data collection and evaluation, including economic modelling and scenario building. A key requirement for this is the availability of economic input-output tables (I/O tables). In their standard form, I/O tables reveal the sources of value creation throughout the value chain. The data can be enriched by employment figures and, from the point of view of developing a green economy, with data on emissions and resource use (physical input-output table). This allows the analysis of the jobs created along the value chain with respect to emissions and resource use. National statistical offices should provide such I/O tables and update them on a regular basis. Practical aspects of the issue and good practice examples [Expand] There are different aspects to consider when assessing your country’s capacities to develop markets and employment in these sectors. These are outlined below. Assessing natural conditions for RE generation Assessing the natural conditions for harvesting sun, wind, hydro, bio and geothermal energy in your country is an important first step in analysing and comparing the potential that different RE sources have for energy generation (and therefore job creation). Many different types of sources are available for estimating the occurrence and distribution of RE in a country. These range from academic papers, to government reports, to publications by international organisations. For example, the South African National Energy Development Institute, Mexico’s Energy Ministry and India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy all regularly issue high-quality data on their respective RE potentials (SENER in IRENA, 2015b; MNRE, 2014; e.g. Wind Atlas for South Africa, 2014). Beyond these self-assessments, there are also a number of international agencies that produce quality data. For instance, IRENA has developed the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy platform, which integrates a large amount of assessment data for multiple RE technologies on a global scale. To correctly assess a country’s RE potential and precisely define its expected contribution, it is important to distinguish between different kinds of potentials. The table below provides a brief overview. [Table: Different types of renewable energy potentials (see IRENA, 2014) - INSERT TABLE - Source: (IRENA, 2014, p. 9)] Assessing the employment potential in RE/EE markets

Good Practices Brazil China India Mexico South Africa Turkey

Reference

This article is part of the RE-ACTIVATE project. RE-ACTIVATE “Promoting Employment through Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the MENA Region” is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).