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In addition to the hundreds of jobs created in construction and design when a new solar or wind power plant is being built, there are also green jobs being created before ground is broken. In California and the Southwest, field biologists are being hired to spend time at proposed sites to gather important information about the environmental impact of the farm. These "bio-nomads" are doing surveys to determine the kinds of species in the area, including any endangered or at risk species, and the size of these populations.
It's likely that this data may play a key role in whether the solar or wind plant is built at that location.
Biologists also need to be on hand to work with the developers to make sure the environment isn't negatively impacted during the construction phase. Their work may include putting radio collars on animals, tracking their movements, and relocating them if they wander into the construction zone.
After a plant is established, biologists will have an opportunity to assess the actual impact on these key species. The big unknown is whether and by how much, these large solar and wind farms will impact the flora and fauna in the area. No one has ever tried to build such massive plants in the desert before.
According to the blog post on The California Report/ClimateWatch, biologists are happy with the increase in the amount of work, the opportunity to work outdoors and meeting other field biologists.
The Department of Energy has been busy assisting the clean energy industry with loan guarantees. The DOE has provided partial loan guarantee for a $1.4 billion project to install solar panels on 750 roof tops called Project Amp. In addition to this and other solar projects, the DOE has also provided a loan guarantee of $135.76 million for a wind farm in New Hampshire and $11 million to advance innovative geothermal energy technologies. In addition to clean energy loan guarantees, $120 million will be going to develop manufacturing processes that will increase energy efficiency.
Based in Austin, TX, SolarBridge has received $19 million from venture capitalists for continued development of microinverters for solar panels. Microinverters convert the electricity collected by a single or a small number of solar panels into usable power. Future plans for SolarBridge may include installing a microinverter into single solar panel at the time of manufacture. Enphase Energy also a maker of microinverters, is in the process of raising $51.5 million.
As you no doubt know, the current job market is very competitive. Employers are literally swamped with resumes.
So how do you catch their attention?
Last week a former client contacted me to let me know he’d landed a green job. Last fall, while completing his Sustainable MBA program, he completed our one-month Find Your Green Focus course.
In our email exchange he shared some observations from his job search.
“There’s no science to job searching – it’s not black and white –
it’s filled with nuances that differ by personality type,
past experience, and future goals.
What worked for me might not work for others.”
1) Be clear about the kind of job you want when you talk with your networking contacts. The clearer you are about your focus, the clearer they will be about what referrals to send your way. Eventually you’ll modify your description to align with the positions potential employers are trying to fill.
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According to the 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 93,500 people are employed directly and indirectly in the US solar industry.
By way of comparison to another industry, there are 9,200 more solar industry jobs than US steel production jobs. If all of the jobs in the steel industry are included in the count, the steel industry comes out ahead of solar by about 6,500 jobs.
Let's look at another comparison to add even more perspective. Although the population of Germany is about 25% of the US population, the photovoltaic sector of the German solar industry employs 100,000 people.
Given that solar is a multi-faceted industry, it has the potential the employ many more people than the 93,500 described here. Watch for more growth as various elements of the solar industry continue to grow.
The Department of Energy has offered a conditional loan guarantee of $150 million to 1366 Technologies to develop more efficient solar cell production that will lower the cost of manufacturing. The North Lexington, MA based company is accepting resumes. The DOE also made loan guarantee offers to solar power plant developer Sempra, and solar manufacturer Calisolar among others. Manufacturer of solar microinverters, SolarBridge Technologies, has raised $19 million.
Home energy software developer, iControl has secured $50 million from investors including Intel, Cisco and Comcast. iControl will use the funds to develop solutions for home owners giving them the ability to remotely manage their energy usage and appliances as well as home security and other applications. The Palo Alto, CA based company has a limited number of openings, some in CA, some in TX.
A developer of plant based crude oil, KiOR has filed for an initial public offering with hopes of raising around $240 million, depending upon the price of the stock. KiOR will use the funds to construct factories that would use a proprietary formula to take wood chips and turn them into a crude oil that could be used by refiners.
The other day this quote stopped me in my tracks!
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Will Rogers
It got me thinking:
How many of us are actually on the right track, but we aren’t willing to claim it?
(Do you actually have a pretty good idea of the green career you want to have, but you aren’t drawing a line in the sand to say you know what you want to do?)
How many of us risk losing traction because we aren’t taking action on the pieces of our vision that we are clear about?
(Or, are you waiting until your new green career vision is crystal clear before you take any action?
Strategies to Get You Moving!
If you are waiting for complete clarity before you act, get over it. NOTHING in our rapidly changing world is 100% clear! We must learn to live and act even when circumstances are not crystal clear.
Claim what you do know! As soon as you acknowledge what you do know, you can move onto the next question. (If you never claim what you know, you continue to swirl in doubt, questions, and internal chaos, which serves no other purpose than extending your journey considerably.)
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In an effort to visualize the job growth in industry sectors, Wired Magazine, in collaboration with LinkedIn, graphed the percentage of LinkedIn users who moved from one industry into another in the last five years. Leading all sectors by a nearly two to one advantage was renewables and the environment.
This article also highlights the early glimmers of a new employment trend that they are calling Smart Jobs. These jobs don't fall into the typical categories used to describe jobs. Think of them as a mash up of blue collar industries and technical skills that require vocational training or college education. You can check out this map to see an array of industries they are tracking (some are green/sustainable, others not so much perhaps).
A manufacturer of electrical energy storage systems and drive components for electric and hybrid buses, Proterra has received $30 million from investors. Proterra will use the funding to improve the efficiency of its factory and to test its buses. There are several openings for engineers in Greenville, South Carolina.
JouleX, a data center energy efficiency company, has secured $17 million from venture capitalists. The need to reduce electrical consumption of data centers will grow as more and more of them go online. Atlanta based JouleX was a past winner of the GE ecomagination challenge.
San Bruno, CA based Agile Energy has raised $24 million from venture capitalists to continue to develop utility scale solar projects. Agile is currently developing a 50 megawatt photovoltaic solar farm in Ohio with utility American Electric Power that is projected to use more than 239,000 solar panels. The project will be constructed on 500 acres that was once used by the Central Ohio Coal Company for strip mining.
