Comparative analysis of direct employment generated by renewable and non-renewable power plants

Juan José Cartelle Barros, Manuel Lara Coira, María Pilar de la Cruz López and Alfredo del Caño Gochi

Energy, 2017, vol. 139, issue C, 542-554

Abstract: A probabilistic and analytical model is presented to assess the direct employment generated by power plants, throughout their lifecycles, from when the fuel is being extracted to the decommissioning stage. To represent the majority of regions and countries around the world, this model provides a global, general and probabilistic vision for all the most common kinds of power plants. Direct job creation is expressed per unit of electricity produced over the plant's lifetime, by means of a normalisation process. Renewables obtained a direct employment generation of around 0.1 to 4 job-years/GWh. On the other hand, the same figure for non-renewable power plants is about 0.1–2.4 job-years/GWh. The results reinforce the idea that some renewable -such as photovoltaic, biomass, mini-hydro and high temperature solar thermal power plants-are still the options with the highest direct employment generation. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates that not all renewables present a high direct employment generation. It also shows that non-renewable alternatives can compete with their renewable counterparts under certain conditions.

Keywords: Direct employment generation; Analytical model; Monte carlo simulation; Power plants; Renewable energy; Life cycle analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:139:y:2017:i:c:p:542-554

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2017.08.025

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