Germany’s Solar PV Industry Now Employs More than US Steel Industry (Over 100,000)

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Solar photovoltaic panels on home in Germany, one of many now featuring solar PV panels.

There’s a nice little statistic for you.

Germany Trade & Invest (GT&I) recently reported that its latest figures show Germany’s solar photovoltaic (PV) industry employs over 100,000 ‘green’ workers now, more than the US steel industry.

Update: A thoughtful reader pointed out to me that “the US has about 312 million people while Germany has 82 million, about 25% as many people…. That makes the German solar industry more than four times as large an employer than US steel based on country size.”

Here’s a little more from PV-Tech:

The main requirement for ‘Made in Germany’ components is driven by the country’s domestic solar market, which installed a total of 7.4GWp in 2010. Yet Germany is also a manufacturing platform for other European PV markets, including Italy, where the feed-in tariff adjustments stipulate that installed technology must be ‘Made in Europe’. At present, approximately 75% of European solar cells, modules and other BOS are currently made in Germany.

More Germany stories on CleanTechnica:

  1. Germany: Talk of the Cleantech Town this Week
  2. Google Invests $5M in German Solar Power Plant
  3. Germany: Nuclear Power 100% Shut Down by 2022
  4. Renewable Energy in Germany Going to Get a Boost from Wind Energy Superhighway
  5. 1.8 GW of Midsize German Solar Installations Due to Feed-in Tariffs

Photo via toxicjames


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan