Solar Energy Industry Jobs and Investment Increasing in Competitive Markets

A recent report forecasts rapid growth in jobs among the solar industry, and predicts competitive market states will lead the way in growing green jobs through clean energy innovation. The National Solar Jobs Census 2010 forecasts 24,000 net new jobs will be created over the next twelve months, a 26 percent increase over the 93,000 currently employed.
 
The report finds that U.S. solar companies expect to add jobs at a much faster pace than the general economy, which is expected to grow only 2 percent over the same period. In addition, over 90 percent of all utilities surveyed believe their solar profiles will increase in the coming year, and about 50 percent of those believe the increase will be greater than 5 percent.
 
Forecast growth of solar jobs in competitive markets is impressive. The top four states in estimated new solar jobs are competitive market states – California, Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan. All four plus Wisconsin, the fifth-ranked state, are within regional organized markets. This echoes the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) Year in Review 2009 report, which found the top two states in 2009 installed capacity and cumulative installed capacity were competitive market states.
 
California is in the middle of a solar energy boom, and nine major projects totaling 4,300 megawatts (MW) of clean energy are currently either under construction or proposed – heady numbers considering the national installed solar power capacity totaled just over 2,000 MW in 2009.  Pharmaceutical firm Janssen recently launched a 4.1 MW project in New Jersey, the largest in the state. GlaxoSmithKline is building a 3.4 MW installation, the largest roof-mounted array in North America, at a Pennsylvania facility.
 
Competitive electricity markets offer advantages to clean energy generation such as a broad geographic footprint with a wide array of backstop generation to accommodate variable generation output, clear market signals to assess investment, low barriers to market entry and easy access to long-distance transmission. As our nation’s economy recovers, COMPETE urges policymakers to consider the contributions competitive electricity markets can make toward U.S. economic and environmental goals.

Joel Malina | December 9, 2010