The Renewable Power Generation Module (RPGM) : an extension to the GWS model family to endogenize technological change in the renewable power generation sector

The BMBF project 'The impact of the German policy mix on technological and structural change in renewable power generation technologies' analyzes the impact of a renewable energy policy mix on technological change, welfare (economic development, employment), trade and structural change using a global macro-economic input-output model. The analysis requires several steps: 1. Identifying the effect of the policy mix on innovation and technological change. 2. Quantifying the effect of technological change on the model parameters and variables. 3. Analyzing the resulting effect on the economy. In this paper a renewable power generation (RPG) module for the INFORUM type econometric input-output models (see Eurostat, 2008) such as GINFORS (Lutz & Wiebe, 2012) or PANTA RHEI (Lehr et al., 2012) is developed. The RPG technologies that we have selected for further analysis are wind (on- and off-shore) and solar PV.