Renewable Energy Jobs Exceed Fossil Fuel Generation Work

Champions of fossil-fuel generation have long complained that jobs losses have been one of the biggest detriments to the decommissioning of coal-fired power plants. And renewable energy sources do nothing to help replace those jobs.

Not so, according to a panel of experts at the recent Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition held at the International Convention in Sydney. At the Q&A after The Benefits of Microgrids for Urban, Rural and Off-Grid Applications seminar, the question of how many jobs are created by renewables was raised by moderator Mark Higgins, COO of clean energy consultancy Strategen.

“In the United States there is a lot of hand wringing over the loss of jobs in the conventional fossil fuel industry,” said Higgins. “In California this issue is finally starting to come to light where statistics are showing that within the renewable energy industry there are more renewable energy jobs than the entire coal industry in the United States.”

This is backed up by a recent report from the U.S. Department of Energy that shows that solar power employed 43 percent of the electricity sector’s workforce in 2016, while fossil fuels combined accounted for 22 percent.

Almost 374,000 people were employed in solar energy, whereas gas, oil and coal power generation combined had a workforce of slightly more than 187,000.

While offering no hard data to back up his point of view, Michael Ottaviano, CEO of Carnegie Clean Energy, said anecdotal evidence suggested that clean energy job opportunities were on the rise.

“If you think about it, since 2010 we’ve retired about 5000 MW of coal-fired power stations,” said Ottaviano. “We haven’t built any coal-fired power stations in about seven years but we’ve built about 10,000MW of renewable [plant]. In terms of job creation, we’ve created no new jobs in the construction of coal-fired power stations in the last seven years, but an enormous amount of jobs to create 10,000MW of renewables. I think the battery storage space is about to take off so we’ll do something similar. Politically the argument doesn’t get much traction in Australia but it should. We’re hearing a lot even in the Finkler report that came out recently about the need for coal-fired power stations to give three years notice partly to allow people to be retrained. That’s a real problem that needs to be addressed.”

ESS vice president of business development, Bill Sproull, said not only did renewables create jobs, but tended to make them localised, which in a country like Australia, is a good thing for regional economies.

“When I think about renewables and microgrids, it’s really decentralising energy generation and control that’s been prevalent in most of our countries. With that, jobs become very much more local, even down to the community level,” he said.

Another panellist, Giin Sia, the Asia Pacific regional sales director for NEC Energy Solutions, sees nothing but positive outcomes in the near future.

“If I could provide feedback from the rest of the Asia Pacific, [renewable] projects are seen as progressive,” he said, “particularly with an existing structure where there is a big dependence on fossil fuel. When talking to some of the utility companies, as well as governments and ministries, I do not get the impression that energy storage or micro grids are going to take away any jobs at all. In fact, it’s going to be able to put in more jobs, specifically in areas that are not seen as traditional skills.”

Battery energy storage should also contribute to new jobs in renewables in coming years. 

So for all you young and work aspiring people, the renewable energy industry might just be the place to seek and build skills that would translate into jobs......real jobs, particularly in regional cities, where living costs might also be lower than state capital cities. 

 [based on article by Mike Wheeler in PACE magazine, June 2016]

Solar Energy Costs Falling Rapidly in Both USA and China - To Equal Coal Prices VERY Soon

China Might Be Winning The Race To Reduce Solar Costs

I did not write most of this material, but the concepts discussed are very relevant for Australia, with major debate now about to commence on removing the Renewable Energy Target and Carbon Tax legislation in Australia.

Are we going in the wrong direction?   This review seems to posit that solar costs will soon equal or be less than energy from the fossil fuel sources [ particularly coal], using PV systems.  This will occur within a few years, and that is well within the planing horizons for new power stations, and also for homeowners to consider the implications for them directly, with self supplied PV power.

Many people, even fanatical advocates of solar power, are unaware just how close we are to reaching a critical milestone in the industry. Within a fairly short space of time, solar generated electricity will be fully cost competitive with coal-powered electricity — at least if the governments of the world’s two largest energy consuming nations have their way.

Both the U.S. and China have a stated goal of reducing the cost of solar generated electricity to that level, and quickly. How they are going about it says a lot about how each economic system works.

In the U.S., despite the complaints of some that a drift toward government control is taking place, private initiative and free markets still rule. The Department of Energy launched the SunShot initiative in 2011, with a stated goal of reducing the cost of solar power to be fully competitive with conventional energy sources by the end of this decade. The program funds grants, incentives and competitions to encourage private sector research that will improve the efficiency and lower the cost of solar energy.

The Chinese, faced with what is in many ways a more urgent need to achieve the same thing, have taken a different approach. In a manner more in keeping with their history and current economic system, they are beating the problem over the head with piles of cash until the desired outcome is achieved. It looks, if this excellent Michael Sankowski piece at Monetary Realism is to be believed, as if they are getting mighty close.

Sankowski maintains that, driven by high levels of pollution and national security concerns, the Chinese government asked a question back in the early 2000s: “How Much Will It Cost To Make Solar Cheaper Than Coal?” The answer was based on Swanson’s Law that states that every doubling of photovoltaic (PV) solar capacity results in a 20 percent reduction in unit cost. Testing that theory, because of low levels of production at that time, would only have cost around $10 billion — a small price to pay for the chance of cheap, clean energy that didn’t rely on importing coal from Australia.

When Swanson’s Law still worked after a couple of doublings of capacity the Chinese government stepped up their efforts. As a result, Suntech now expects the goal to be achieved by 2016, or 2017 at the latest. That’s right: 2016. A couple of years. Of course, Suntech has an interest in exaggerating somewhat, but even so, that is stunningly close.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal accounted for 69 percent of China’s energy production as recently as 2011. Cost comparative solar power and a centralized government committed to change will make that number laughable in a few years.

It should be borne in mind that reducing the cost of solar electricity to parity with coal in China is not the same as it is in America, if for no other reason than that electricity in general, and coal-powered electricity in particular, is more expensive in China than in the US.

SunShot, however, has also been successful, and claims a 60 percent reduction in cost since its inception three years ago. Many believe that their stated goal of solar power at $0.06 per kilowatt hour (kWH) is achievable by 2018. Some of that cost reduction is no doubt down to China ramping up capacity at such a rate and flooding the market, but there have been technological advances over that time, as well.
You can argue all day about which approach is correct. History shows us that innovation from the private sector is the most effective, long lasting change agent there is, but the Chinese approach of heavily subsidizing a massive increase in PV production capacity has been effective. Unfair, short sighted and disruptive, maybe, but effective nonetheless.

Command economies may be terrible at some things but when the rapid marshalling of resources is needed to solve a problem they can be very good at doing whatever it takes.

The simple fact is that with both innovation and increased capacity, the cost of solar energy has fallen considerably over the last few years and continues to do so. If, as looks likely, it does become truly cost comparative with coal in the next few years, then the days of cheap, clean, renewable energy dominating the world’s two biggest energy markets may be closer than you think.

Will that apply to Australia as well?  Based on current thinking in this country.........do not hold your breath.  However, it is obvious that with our energy costs from fossil fuel moderately high, it does seem that change might be coming sooner than most people have really thought it would be, here in Australia!

Article by Martin Tillier, first appearing in Oilprice.com.