Open Access

Sarah Rießle

• The major objective of this thesis is to analyse the given investment incentives for renewable energies, especially for photovoltaics, in Germany and to make recommendations for potential investors who are willing to invest. For this reason the author decided to check the incentives for profitability. In the first part, the origins of and present strategies for structural changes in the energy sector are explained. The fact is that global warming mainly is man-made. Green house gas emissions should be reduced by focusing on the expansion of renewable energies. The paper then identifies the provided investment incentives and further highlights the advantageousness of each incentive. In a detailed central section the thesis examines six model calculations. The applied method to carry out a valuation of the investment is the net present value method. Payments-in and payments-out of the potential investment are compared and discounted to determine the net present value. The results of the calculations demonstrate that selling the generated electric power completely is uneconomically due to the declining feed-in compensation. The associated investment incentives were unable to improve the result. By contrast, private consumption of the generated electric energy is gaining in importance. Energy storage devices are installed and promoted correspondingly. Consequently, the provided investment incentives are profitable and favorable. On the basis of the results of these calculations, it can be concluded that the expansion of renewable energies is an ongoing process characterized by changes in the structure of provided investment incentives. These data support the view that in the future there is going to be a strong tendency to store the electric energy generated by renewable energies.