How Many Solar PV Jobs Are There?

Liz Merry
February 11, 2010 | 5 Comments

Workforce studies are produced to help design training curriculums, promote pro-renewable policies, and to capture market share by definining an industry as a subset of a particular trade.

But, lately it feels like studying renewable energy jobs is a faster growing industry than the industry being studied.

If you are looking for a job in renewables, you care about the actual number of job openings available, not so much the macro projections. For a great analysis of renewable energy workforce projections and how to read them see Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy industry Generate? by Dr. Kammen and his team at the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley. ::continue::

Communities need solid employment projections for renewable industries to gauge where to invest and how to accelerate positive employment trends. Job seekers are interested in how big the opportunities are so they can decide how hard to focus their efforts toward one industry vs. another.

Here is a very unscientific, and yet I hope 'common sense' estimate of what's really happening in the U.S. flat-plate photovoltaic industry regarding employment. If anything, it underestimates what is really happening out there.

Measure by Revenue.
The applications for California Solar Initiative (CSI) incentives described approximately $54.5 miliion in revenue in January, from 713 online application submissions and 9,354kW of nameplate power.

If we assume the CSI is 85% of PV sales activity in Caifornia, and California represents 70% of PV sales in the U.S., and that on average the sales will be 50% higher during the year due to weather, the resulting projected annual revenue for the U.S., not including utility and federal government projects, is approximately $1.46billion in direct sales.

Using gross sales revenue to budget for staff is not uncommon in the remodeling industry. Let's estimate that every $100,000 in gross annual revenue supports one fulll-time-equivalent (FTE) annual job. By this gauge there are 14,689 FTE jobs in the downstream, "direct" PV solar industry. If we assume federal government and utility projects represent another 15% of revenue (very conservative) that brings employment to 16,892 direct PV jobs.

From these direct jobs let's use a very conservative "multiplier" of 3 to describe all the jobs feeding directly into the direct solar jobs. Indirect jobs include consultants, trainers, analysts, lawyers, agency staff, advocacy groups, utility staff, investors, writers, support services, etc. Because PV is so distributed, its multiplier is probably much higher.

Given these very conservative estimates, the current PV revenue rate is supporting 50,677 full time jobs at current (read: still in the economic downturn) solar spending.

If we grow revenue just 20% this year, that's another "new" 10,000 jobs - but with the full impact of the Stimulus bill and adding in the federal and utility PV installations, it seems more likely we'll have more than 20,000 new full-time PV jobs this year.

Measure by Job and Power installed.

You could run through these same numbers using number of systems installed, kW per system, and estimate the number of positions it takes to support each fully-employed installer. Figure each installer FTE is 2kW per week.

*****************

There are plenty of reasons my reasoning here may be wrong, and I can hear statisticians moaning. Mea culpa to be sure.

I've gone through the simple exercise in order to demonstrate my fervent wish that the next renewable energy workforce study shows their numbers and clearly describes their math. Heck, maybe even ties their projections to actual revenue and job opening data.

*data from CaliforniaSolarStatistics.ca.gov

Workforce Studies:

Jobs Impact of a Renewable Electricity Standard

Greener Pathways

Solar Industry Study California Centers of Excellence

IREC's index of Jobs Studies

Bureau of Economic Analysis (lists the Input-Output tables used to figure the multiplier for various jobs)

Solar Workforce Development - IREC Summary from 2008

ASES Energy Efficiency & Renewable Workforce Study

Liz Merry owns Verve Solar Consulting, through which she teaches (Solar Industry Orientation (tm) and Solar Careers and Opportunities (tm)) seminars, writes solar business curriculum, and consults for new solar businesses. Liz's latest cool-solar-resources and opinions can be found at SolarToday.org/Liz and at VerveSol on Twitter.

The information and views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyWorld.com or the companies that advertise on this Web site and other publications. This blog was posted directly by the author and was not reviewed for accuracy, spelling or grammar.

5 Comments

Mike Shaw
February 17, 2010

The US Energy Information Agency has it's own problems. The map that shows average cost in each state does not say the same thing as the chart. The map says Missouri's average kWh cost is 5.07-6.83 cents, but the chart says 8 cents. I live in Missouri and buy electricity from a co-op that charges 8 cents which is considered the lowest rate in the state. So how can that be the average?

Robert Emery
February 13, 2010

Electrical demand in the US declined 3.6% last year according to the US Energy Information Agency. Any Renewable Energy capacity added means shutting down conventional capacity and the loss of the associated jobs that also includes equipment manufacturing. Presently, there isn't any law preventing moving manufacturing jobs overseas. The number of clean-energy jobs in the U.S. would more than double by 2025 if the nation adopts a plan to get 25 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources, says a report backed by energy firms. Nationwide, 274,000 jobs would be created in the wind, solar, hydropower, biomass and waste-to energy industries by 2025 if a 25 percent standard is adopted, says research firm Navigant Consulting.
Those sectors now support about 196,000 jobs.

The sun doesn't shine at night and solar with a capacity factor of 25-30% has a finite limit to the amount that can be added to a electrical system. One the installation surge is over, unemployment will rise again.

Liz Merry
February 13, 2010

Dennis,
I agree with you that $100k per FTE is a low figure. It would mean a $1million per year revenue install firm was carrying 10 full time positions. The companies I know in that revenue range are usually "two guys and a truck" doing almost everything.

We could assume it's $300k revenue per FTE, but then assume the multiplier is larger - maybe 5, and end up with about the same total employment #'s. The goal (for me) is to apply real-world data to the question.

Thanks very much for your note and observations.

Dennis Houghton
February 13, 2010

As an electrical technology instructor in a national apprenticeship program, I agree with your observation that training for green jobs is apparently more of a job growth opportunity than the so-called green jobs that people are training for. Our programs have included wind turbine, fuel cell and solar PV technology programs for several years.Our members fund our national and local training programs with >$100 million/year of private money. Training and education are expensive but also the the easy part and ARRA stimulus money has made that happen across the country with many new and traditional organizations providing it. A general look at the for-profit training programs would lead you to believe that it takes about $3000 and 7-10 days of hands-on and classroom training to be a certified solar installer. There is probably more to it than that but that impression certainly brings optimistic young workers through the classroom door.

As an electrical estimator, including solar PV, I must question your base assumption that $100,000 of gross sales would generate one FTE job. If that job paid $15/hour and included health insurance it would cost@$45k/year leaving $55K for the system cost. Certainly less than 15kW (@$4/W) of solar PV can be installed for that amount. 15kW is about 75 PV modules installed per year. Perhaps a more reasonable baseline number would be $300-400K gross sales/FTE. Regretably, when you use more a realistic number, the downstream job creation projections are also cut dramatically.

More optimistically.
Some fraction of the stimulus money is beginning to be spent on tangible projects and some new renewable energy system technician positions are being created.

Liz Merry
February 12, 2010

And another thing - most workforce studies seem to lump together many trades and industries (e.g. renewable energy studies include energy efficiency and vice versa) such that they tend to lose meaning. My little analysis focused only on PV installations under 1MW in size, not solar thermal, lighting, concentrating PV, solar cooling, etc....

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Liz Merry

My mission is to help you become more effective in your work to promote the use of solar technology. Verve Solar Consulting is a sole-proprietorship and network of solar experts who produce solar industry business courses, write educational...