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(The Talk) – When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, he called it the “biggest investment ever” to fight climate change. He also said it would lead to the creation of good-paying union jobs to help “reduce emissions in every sector of our economy.” These jobs are also known as “clean energy jobs” and are expected to grow in the coming years as a result of the Act’s $369 billion investment in energy security and climate change.

Here, career and technical education expert Shaun Dougherty answers five questions about clean energy jobs, their expected growth, and what education a person should have.

1. What is “clean energy” business?

In general, the term refers to any work related to the production of products and the provision of services aimed at protecting or preserving natural resources or reducing their use.

So there are jobs manufacturing equipment for solar panel and wind turbine components. There are also sales jobs in solar, meaning selling solar panels to homeowners and homeowners, as well as installation, maintenance, and repair jobs in both the solar and wind industries. There is also a growing demand for environmental engineers and scientists whose jobs help design solar panels and wind turbines and determine where to place them.

2. How many green jobs will be created in the next few years?

About 9 million clean energy jobs will be created over the next decade, according to an analysis by UMass Amherst’s Institute for Political Economy Research.

The federal government also predicts strong growth in clean energy jobs over the next decade. Many of these jobs are expected to be installers and technicians for both solar and wind energy. For example, a 68% increase in wind turbine maintenance jobs and a 52% increase in solar panel installation jobs are predicted over the next decade. However, the actual increase in such jobs will be relatively small: 4,700 and 6,100, respectively.

The need for environmental scientists and specialists who use scientific knowledge to protect the environment and human health is also increasing. The federal government plans to create 7,300 new jobs in these areas over the next ten years.

3. What is the salary of these jobs?

Clean energy jobs pay at least $2 an hour, or about 10% more than the national average of $23.86 an hour.

Labor Department estimates show that clean energy jobs are doing well in all occupations. For example, solar installers can earn about $47,000 a year, wind turbine technicians about $52,000 a year, and engineers about $100,000 a year.

4. What education do you need to find a green job?

Not much more than high school. Solar installation jobs usually only require a high school diploma. Turbine technicians need more advanced training, but this is usually a certification that can be obtained at a technical or community college. However, the highest-paying jobs, such as environmental science or engineering, require a two- or four-year college degree.

Also, college isn’t the only way to get a clean energy job. You can get a clean energy job through Job Corps, a federal program that works with youth who have difficulty getting an education or a job. Research shows that Job Corps, at least historically, increases the earnings of the youth it serves.

Getting the technical education you need from your local high school can be difficult. It also depends on where you live.

5. Where is the best place to live to find a green job?

Today, there are more green jobs in places built to provide renewable energy and create incentives to build infrastructure for clean energy. For the sun, that means popular sunny spots like California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Texas, Florida, and Colorado. It also includes states such as North Carolina, New York and Massachusetts that have created incentives to increase their capacity to use clean energy. Texas is the best place to do wind energy, but other Plains states like the Dakotas are also doing well.

A recent report from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit public policy organization, highlighted where wind and solar energy generation is cheapest. This includes areas where there are many jobs in non-renewable energy as opposed to clean energy.

This is a hopeful sign. This suggests that clean energy jobs could come to areas that stand to lose as the country moves toward greater reliance on renewable energy.

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Ameresco and Inovateus Solar announced the completion of a 2.62 MW brownfield solar project.

September 2, 2022 Anne Fischer

Clean technology integrator Ameresco, Inc. and a former brownfield is turning green with the completion of a Danville solar system announced by Inovateus Solar, a solar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company. The project was built on a brownfield site of the former General Motors Powertrain Division Plant. Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company, an independent power producer and green energy investment company, owns the installation.

The 2.62 MW system consists of more than 6,600 solar modules and is connected to the Ameren utility grid. The completed project is expected to generate more than 3,600,000 kWh of electricity and emit more than 1,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, or the equivalent of powering 350 Illinois homes and taking about 480 cars off the road.

“By deploying solar energy on indoor landfills, we can turn a serious problem into a huge opportunity,” said Tyler Kanczuzewski, vice president of sustainability at Inovateus. “The Danville Solar project makes productive use of land that would otherwise remain idle by avoiding construction in more pristine areas. We are proud to partner with Ameresco on this project and help Illinois achieve its clean energy goals.”

This project contributes to the Illinois Future Energy Jobs Act, which calls for 2,700 MW of solar power to be installed in Illinois by 2030, with 2% of those projects coming from brownfield sites. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Illinois has a strong and growing solar market due to its renewable portfolio standard, which requires 25% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2025. The amount of installed solar capacity in Illinois is currently 1.5 GW, and is expected to grow more than 1,700% over the next five years. Illinois ranks 17th in the nation for installed solar power.

“We are proud to be a partner in this project, which is designed to help meet sustainability goals and offer clean, sustainable energy to the surrounding community,” said Louis P. Maltezos, executive vice president of Ameresco. “This installation is a prime example of using innovative clean technology solutions to identify clean energy uses for public lands.”

The Danville solar project began construction in November 2020 and was completed in May 2022.

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Over the past three years, Virginia has mainstreamed its energy policy, focusing it on solar and wind power generation. The Department of Environmental Quality has set a target of 5.5 GW of renewable energy by 2022, of which at least 3 GW must be deployed. In the past two years, the state has deployed solar-powered, gigawatt-scale power in the dwarf years.

Virginia is targeting 30% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% renewable energy by 2050. While most construction so far has been on the utility scale, the state also has significant incentives for solar and energy storage at the residential and commercial levels.

Incentives

Virginia uses a traditional net metering program, meaning a solar customer will receive a credit on their bill for any excess electricity sent back to the grid. All residential customers with systems below 20 kW are charged the full retail rate. Non-residential projects can receive up to 1 MW of retail net metering and up to 500 kW of agricultural customers.

Virginia, like many states, has a property tax exemption for solar energy. While a home’s value will likely increase after going solar, Zillow estimates an average of 4%, property taxes won’t be assessed on that value increase. A residential property tax exemption earlier this year increased the system size to 25 kW.

In 2020, the Virginia Clean Economy Act was passed, which mandates the state obtain at least 1% of its energy from solar power through a renewable portfolio standard. To encourage this, the state established a solar renewable energy credit (SREC) program. A credit is given to the solar consumer for each megawatt-hour produced by the system. Virginia SRECs are currently priced at about $50 per month, with a price cap of $75.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act was a major step in the state’s energy transition. It is expected to create up to 13,000 jobs a year, generate approximately $70 billion in net benefits for residents and generate savings of up to $3,500 per household over the next 30 years. It also put caps on electricity bills, closed loopholes in energy monopolies and added energy efficiency programs for marginalized communities.

Federal incentives will make solar even more affordable for Virginians. The Investment Tax Credit was recently extended by 30% for the next decade. Credit also applies to battery energy storage.

A full list of solar and clean energy incentives can be found here.

Shared sun?

Another policy development that solar advocates took issue with this year was the creation of a $55-a-month “shared solar” minimum bill. Similar to community solar, shared solar allows customers to plug in some off-site solar generation when rooftop solar isn’t a viable option. The $55 minimum bill is the highest in the country for good measure.

The approved legislation also determines the rate for promissory note loans within the program. $0.11765/kW to customers; however, Dominion Energy’s customers pay upwards of $0.124/kWh for conventional electricity, and rates continue to rise. Generally, community or shared solar programs offer savings on the bill or at least price parity with the market, but under this program, the economics are not particularly attractive to residential customers.

“We did not pass legislation to create a program that exists in name only,” a group of pro-solar state senators wrote in a letter to the commission. “(The shared solar program) has to be done with the basic assumption that the program is supposed to work. A competitive shared solar program is a new and exciting frontier for Virginia, and we encourage industry and advocates to give serious consideration to the information it provides about success in other markets.

Dominion argued that the higher payment was intended to compensate for the “cost shift” that non-participants would receive as a result of the program. The company has not yet provided evidence of how much non-participating costs will change.

The “cost shift” argument is standard in the monopoly utility playbook for eliminating distributed solar projects and third-party involvement in their areas. Read about California’s fight against the cost-shifting argument and the exposure of its false assumptions here.

“It is correct that the record does not show evidence indicating exactly what cost changes would occur under Dominion’s proposed minimum bill or other proposed minimum bills,” SCC Hearing Examiner Mathias Roussy wrote.

Great project

Although not yet installed, the most notable project in the state is among the largest solar installations in the world. The Randolph Solar project is an 800 MW renewable energy titan with an estimated cost of over $800 million. This July, Charlotte County, Virginia officials voted to grant a conditional use permit to SolUnesco’s planned 21,000-acre project in the southern part of the county.

Photo: SolUnesco

Construction is scheduled for the second quarter of 2025 and could take up to 2 years for a crew of 700 workers to complete. The project is expected to generate $311 million in revenue to the county over its planned 35-year life. Even if the permit is granted, SolUnesco still needs approval from the State Corporations Commission, which it expects in 2024 after the company has completed environmental impact studies as well as other pre-construction site and viability assessments.

Placement

Solar power is an increasingly important part of Virginia’s grid. As of Q1 2022, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says the state has installed about 3.8 GW of solar capacity. This would rank 10th in the country in terms of placement. In 2021, it took the 4th place in the country in terms of utility-scale projects.

Image: UNTIL

The state has 179 solar companies, nearly 5,000 jobs and has invested more than $4 billion in solar technology to date, according to SEIA. The state has 28,095 solar projects installed, and SEIA projects another 4.1 GW will be installed over the next five years.

Virginia currently has enough solar energy to power more than 427,000 homes, which is on track to have 3.6 million homes powered by renewable energy by 2050.

Our last stop on the US pv magazine 50 state solar tour took us to West Virginia, and next we’ll head to North Carolina, another east coast solar leader.

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Rendering, Solar AquaGrid

California utilities are preparing to launch a pilot project to cover California’s irrigation canals with solar panels.

The decision was influenced by a landmark 2021 research paper by scientists at the Univ. California’s Santa Cruz crunched the numbers and found that the panels would save 63.5 billion gallons of water from evaporation each year by shading the running water.

Turlock Irrigation District Water & Power is developing two pilot canal projects: a 500-foot (152-meter) curved canal section near the town of Hickman and a second mile-long (1.6 km) canal in immediately nearby Ceres.

GNN reported last year that a UC Santa Cruz study found that for every megawatt of solar power generated during Turlock’s 290 days of average sunshine, a pair of panels on the canals could replace 15 to 20 diesel generators used to pump water along the canals.

The work called Project Nexus is planned to start in October this year with 20 million dollars of funding from the state treasury.

Similar to: Large water supplies are saved from evaporation when Solar Panels are built over canals

Duct-mounted panels have the added benefit of a longer functional life, preventing evaporation, reducing the land space needed for solar farms and increasing green energy production, as the water underneath keeps the undersides of the panels cooler.

The idea actually began in 2014 in the Indian state of Gujarat, when a pilot project covering 750 meters of canal area led to the creation of an entire canal-side solar plant in Vadodara district and another solar plant with a total capacity of 100 megawatts on the banks of the Narmada River.

Researchers in India found that water flowing under the panels also cooled them, preventing overheating and resulting in an average efficiency increase of 2-5%.

California has nearly 4,000 miles of canals that could generate up to 13 gigawatts of power, which would power about 750,000 homes, or half the size of Los Angeles.

RELATED: Irrigation System Talks to Plants to Know Their Water Needs — Reduces Water Use by 30-50%

“It’s really exciting to test our hypothesis and the paper we published. We will have an opportunity to understand whether these benefits exist in the real world,” one of the lead investigators at UC Santa Cruz, Brandi McKuin, told Reuters.

(Note: GNN has no affiliation with any of the ads shown in the video below)

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First Solar is the largest solar panel manufacturer based in the United States and currently has three operating factories. The company announced a fourth on Tuesday. Photo by LCEC/Pixabay

Aug. 30 (UPI) — The nation’s largest solar panel maker announced Tuesday that it will invest up to $1 billion to build a fourth new factory in the Southeast.

First Solar, the largest US developer of green energy panels, said the plan directly supports “the country’s transition to a carbon-free future and the fight against climate change.”

A key factor in the plan, the company said, is the new Inflation Reduction Act – a sweeping legislative package that will stimulate domestic manufacturing. Congress passed the bill and President Joe Biden signed it into law last week.

“In passing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration entrusted our industry with the responsibility of securing America’s clean energy future, and we must rise to the occasion in a timely and sustainable manner,” First Solar CEO Mark Widmar said in a statement.

“This investment is an important step toward self-sufficiency in solar technology, which in turn supports America’s ambitions for energy security, large-scale solar deployment, and leadership in innovation.”

First Solar estimates its factory project will create about 850 manufacturing jobs.

The company also said it plans to invest $185 million to expand its manufacturing facility in northwest Ohio.

“First Solar will invest in expanding the capacity of its two operational facilities in Perrysburg and Lake Township,” the company said in a statement. “The company will also expand a third Ohio factory, which is expected to be operational in the first half of 2023.

“The expansion will increase First Solar’s total investment in Ohio manufacturing facilities to more than $3 billion.”

The Inflation Reduction Act includes billions in funding to fight climate change and aims to reduce greenhouse gases by 40% by the end of the 2020s. Some experts have said that this law is the most effective environmental protection law in recent times.