The Rise of Finance in the Wind Industry

This work identifies the role and the influence of the financial sector on the wind energy commodity chain and explains how and why it comes to financialization processes in the German wind industry.

The energy revolution represents one of the greatest challenges of our times. Wind energy plays a central role within this implementation of sustainable energy supply. The increasing complexity of wind park planning, construction and operation, initiated by policy and economy, as well as the required target of transferring renewable energies into a free market, is a difficult task for the wind energy market in Germany today and will be in the future as well. The wind industry and the financial sector are addressing the new challenges with ever new ideas. In this context, an analysis from the perspective of the Global Commodity Chain approach is presented, which shows the exchange relations between the wind industry and the financial sector and explains changes and shifts in this system. This work shows what influence the financial sector has on the development of wind energy, identifies the power position and the influence of the financial sector in the wind energy commodity chain and explains how and why it comes to financialization processes in the German wind industry.

Autorentext
The scientific treatise has been accepted as dissertation with the title The Rise of Finance in the Wind Industry. Financialization in Global Commodity Chains. Analysis of the German Wind Energy Market at the Universität Hamburg - Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences - Department of Earth Sciences based on the scientific opinions of Prof. Dr. Christof Parnreiter and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Oßenbrügge. The oral defense has been successfully passed on December 11, 2017.