Regardless of the EU appearing not to be on track to meeting its targets[51], the European renewable energy industry is today one of the fastest growing industry sectors in the EU: it has reached a turnover of EUR 10 billion and employs some

200.0 people.

The renewable energy industry, because it is labour-intensive, creates employment at much higher rates than many other energy technologies. New research, industrial and craft jobs appear directly in R&D, production, installation and maintenance of renewable energy systems. Backward linkages to other sectors triggering demand for technical RE expertise exist for consultancies, insurance companies and even law firms performing technical due diligence.

Predicting precisely the number of people to be trained is difficult. However, various projections for employment in the renewable energy industry have been made. Currently, around 85.000 jobs have been created in Europe in the field of wind energy alone.

According to estimations of the European Renewable Energy Council[52], by 2010, there will be 184.000 full time jobs in the wind sector, 338.000 in biomass, with

424.0 additional jobs for biofuels. Small hydro and geothermal power are expected to provide for 15.000 and 6.000 jobs respectively, while PV and solar thermal will employ another 30.000 and 70.000 people. This presents a total of over 1 million jobs for the RE sector by 2010, an impressive number that is to double for the new RE sector target of 20% by 2020!

Even if it is only a small proportion of these employees who require education at graduate level, it is clear that the demand for technical RE expertise is growing.

Specific skills profiles

Renewable energies cover a wide range of diversified technologies, and each energy has its specific skills and know-how requirements a general engineer does not automatically meet. How much does a biofuel expert have in common with a turbine developer? Even within one technology, such as PV, experts either focus on systems or on materials. Until recently, there was no university training to be found that went into sufficient depth to provide its graduates with the relevant expertise, and specific training was left to the employer.