| Renewable Renaissance: an opportunity in times of crisis | ||||||||||
| Every day, we at SAM Headhunting have the joy of matching great candidates with great jobs in great companies. In SAM Headhunting Italy, we last year had the joy of matching Mr. Massimiliano Pili with the position of Planning Manager in the renewables industry sector. Every job and every sector is different, but we have invited Mr. Pili to share the perspectives of his line of business with us. Green is in fashion According to Mr. Pili: “Energy renewable sources are very fashionable in this time. This does not depend only on oil price growing in the last 16 months to nearly 150 US$ per gallon or even falling again temporarily. Even if in the last period, energy has been many times a breaking news on tv, we can say this subject has become more and more important in public opinion in the last decade. Thanks to the Kyoto Treaty and subsequent European regulatory acts (e.g. Emission Trading Scheme), the world has become more aware of environmental issues. In the past decade, renewable energy sources have increased their market share in the energy generation sector, so we can talk of renewable renaissance (because we have to remind ourselves that the major source of electricity generation was Hydro until the end of World War 2). A growing sector Even if since September 2008, oil prices have decrease due to international financial crisis, it is a fast growing sector with a higher than 10% rate each year in many countries. Regulation is very important to give players stability to let them invest, and subsidies to close the technology cost gap and to develop new cheaper technologies. This is the occasion to develop an industry and create value and jobs as the German example testifies (250,000 new job positions in a few years thanks to a law that has incentivized Wind and Photovoltaic Farms, giving investors easy access to subsidies and low bureaucracy for plant authorization). There are other good examples of support by country government that have contributed to developing a strong industry:
Renewable energy in Italy The Italian scenario sees a late start, but this is a country with great potential. Apart from hydroelectric generation (that is a consolidated asset but shows a reducing trend), the most important source is the Eolic one with more than 2700 MW Wind Turbines capacity installed at the end of 2007. Wind generation has a more relevant market share than PV generation in Italy, but wind conditions and a hard authorization path (but this problem affect PV sector too) does not allow to think to a Danish (more than 18% of Danish energy production in 2007 came from Wind Turbines) scenario for Italy. Anyway Italian Government objectives are ambitious and something is happening, infact in 2005 an important subsidies plan was stated by law (Conto Energia) to incentive PV energy production. PV plants are growing fast in number but despite an increasing growing rate, the total Installed capacity power (MW) and energy production (MWh) are low compared to other sources.
Many analysts see a huge development of solar sector in next years thanks to US market which should become the first world market. The reasons are in the Federal Law (ITC) giving a fiscal bonus, and the high sun hours available on nearly the whole US territory. According to many scientists in Europe, only Italy has solar radiation conditions comparable to US. So solar power generation has many chances to grow. SAM Headhunting matched me to the right job and right company For all these reasons, after many years working in a consultancy company (energy related activities), I decided last year to join the PV sector and a great renewables industry company. SAM Headhunting helped me to find the right company. And nonetheless, the right company to find me!” Read more
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| Date | 26-01-2009 | |||
| Files to download | ||||||
 | renewable energy | download (jpg 40 KB) | ||||