“Capital Structure Effects on Firm Performance in the Renewable Energy Sector: Evidence from Germany”

1. Explanation of your dissertation topic (about 800 words)

Overall motivation and objectives:

The Kyoto Protocol induced a growing number of countries to establish targets for renewable energy supplies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as to increase energy security. These targets are either expressed in terms of installed capacity or as a percentage of energy consumption. These targets have served as important catalysts for increasing the share of renewable energy throughout the world.

As a result of the growing share of energy generated from renewable sources such as wind, water and biomass Germany’s energy supply is becoming “greener” from year to year. As shown in graph 1 in 2014 renewables already accounted for 25.8 per cent of the gross power production in Germany. On 1 April 2000 the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) went into force and lead to a massive increase of the renewable energy production in the electricity sector, from under 40 to over 140 billion of kilowatt per hours (see graph 2).