Clean Energy Jobs on the Rise

Jobs in the clean energy industry grew by 3.9% last year, outpacing overall U.S. employment and all other forms of energy, according to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) U.S. Energy & Employment Jobs Report (USEER) released this week. More than 18,000 new U.S. utility-scale clean energy jobs were added in 2022, bringing the total number of U.S. clean energy jobs in the wind, solar, and battery storage sectors to more than 460,000.

“We are on the leading edge of incredible growth in the clean energy economy. Clean energy production and the manufacturing of new energy technologies are creating new career paths and economic opportunity in communities across the country,” said American Clean Power Association (ACP) CEO Jason Grumet. “While growth in clean energy jobs is outpacing the rest of the economy, sustaining this progress requires overcoming a number of looming obstacles. Topping the list is America’s need for high-capacity transmission lines to carry clean and reliable energy to homes and businesses across America. We must connect clean power to the people to achieve the economic promise and domestic job growth of these new industries.”

Other key findings from USEER:

• The wind and solar industry employ veterans at rates 80% and 60% higher, respectively, than the average workforce.
• The clean power industry employs workers represented by unions, collective bargaining agreements, and/or project labor agreements at a rate that is nearly 60% higher than the average workforce.
• The clean power industry is an important source of domestic manufacturing jobs. Currently, more than 82,000 Americans work in manufacturing plants supporting the clean power industry.

Reflecting strong growth in the sector, ACP has ramped up its workforce development activities, including publishing a Clean Energy Career Pathways Catalog, which details more than 300 technical and specialty jobs across clean energy, and 30 micro credentials that can be used to verify the skills of technicians. Most recently, ACP unveiled a draft entry-level wind technician training guideline that is built off the ANSI/ACP Wind Technician Entry Level Minimum Standard published in 2022. Training guidelines for solar and storage technicians will be published later this year.