The American wind power industry is driving an employment bonanza, with the sector supporting a record 88,000 positions across the country at the start of 2016.
Wind turbine technicians are now the fastest growing profession in the USA, employing nearly 9,000 people according to the “U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report, Year Ending 2015,” released yesterday by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).
“Wind power benefits more American families than ever before,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA. “We’re helping young people in rural America find a job close to home. Others are getting a fresh chance to rebuild their careers by landing a job in the booming clean energy sector.”
Mr Kiernan believes that the wind power workforce can grow to 380,000 well-paying jobs by 2030.
Wind energy now ranks as America’s number one source of new generating capacity – outpacing fossil fuels, natural gas and other clean energy technologies such as solar. The strength of the industry, said Mr. Kiernan, was due to a bipartisan decision by the federal government to pass a long-term extension of the Production Tax Credit and an alternative Investment Tax Credit for wind power projects.
The AWEA CEO said these policy support measures would ensure investors remained upbeat about funding wind energy, and would keep the sector on track to meet the Department of Energy’s Wind Vision scenario of supplying 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030.
“Made-in-the-USA wind power will help keep our economy competitive and our air clean for generations,” Mr. Kiernan said. “Our wind energy will never run out.”
The majority of employment has originated with the building and maintenance of wind power projects, with over 38,000 positions in that booming area alone. The sector has attracted a total of USD $128 billion in new investment over the last 10 years.
While Texas leads the nation with 24,000 wind energy employees and the most capital investment (USD $32.7 billion), Oklahoma jumped into second place in 2015, adding 7,000 jobs in wind project construction on the back of investments totaling USD $9.6 billion.
The country is now beginning to build more of its own wind turbines, with manufacturing of wind farm components now supporting over 21,000 jobs across 43 states – a jump of 10 percent in a single year.
Wind is meeting more of states’ energy requirements. Xcel Energy, the main utility in Colorado, reported wind satisfied 66 percent of electricity demand at times during the reporting period, and in recent weeks wind met 48 percent of the energy on the main Texas grid.
“Each new wind turbine typically avoids over 4,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year, (equal to nearly 900 cars’ worth). U.S. wind energy avoided 132 million metric tons in total CO2 emissions last year, equal to eliminating all electric power sector emissions from Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Colorado,” the report states.
