Jobs in clean energy are expanding faster in Pennsylvania than the state’s overall economy, and those numbers are expected to keep growing. That’s according to a new report, “Clean Energy Workforce: Needs and Opportunities for Southwestern PA” by the nonprofit Sustainable Pittsburgh.
Ginette Walker Vinski, acting deputy director at Sustainable Pittsburgh, said while the report found positive trends for the industry, a number of challenges remain for it to keep growing in the Keystone State. She talked to The Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier.
LISTEN to their conversation
Reid Frazier: About how many people in Pennsylvania work in what you’re calling the clean energy economy?
Ginette Walker Vinski: Pennsylvania’s clean energy sector represents nearly 100,000 workers and ranks in the top 10 nationally for the largest number of clean energy jobs.
Reid Frazier: Why is the clean energy economy growing faster than the overall economy in Pennsylvania?
Ginette Walker Vinski: You know, you’re seeing the costs drop tremendously on various renewable energy projects. And I think that that is a great incentive visor for businesses and municipalities to move forward with some of these projects that maybe they’ve always thought about but never actually had the means to do that.
I mean, certainly, the state and federal investments have been huge in making that happen. But I think one could surmise that living in a community that provides for a healthier workplace, a healthier neighborhood, by reducing your carbon emissions while being able to breathe clean air and drink clean water, I think those are things that we all would like to have. And if there are opportunities to advance those kinds of things, then I think that’s what we want to do.
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Reid Frazier: Your report found several insights into some of the challenges of expanding the clean energy economy. What did your report find?
Ginette Walker Vinsk: First of all, people need to know what the clean energy economy is and what clean jobs are. Improving visibility and accessibility of clean energy jobs – that’s one opportunity that we found for improving the clean energy workforce in southwestern Pa..
Reid Frazier: So people aren’t aware that these jobs are out there. Is that something that the people in the industry are telling you?
Ginette Walker Vinski: That’s something that we’re hearing from people in the industry. And oftentimes, though, we’re finding that folks, a person might be working in the clean energy space and maybe not realize it.
Reid Frazier: So people could be working in the clean energy workforce and not really realize that that’s what they’re doing.
Ginette Walker Vinski: Yeah, they might not be thinking about it. I mean, think about if you’re in the trades, you know, plumbing, construction, HVAC, those are all areas of work that could be considered clean energy jobs when you are, let’s say, installing a heat pump, for example, or working on more energy efficient buildings. Those are clean energy jobs.
Reid Frazier: What are some ways to get the word out that these jobs exist? Is there anything your organization is doing to do that?
Ginette Walker Vinski: One of the things that Sustainable Pittsburgh is doing is working with a firm to develop career maps for the clean energy space. So at this point, we’re focusing on two sectors construction and advanced manufacturing.
These maps will feature roles within those sectors, different jobs going from entry-, mid- to senior-level positions. And within each of these roles on these maps, you’ll be able to click one, and it’s going to show you your potential career pathway.
We’re really excited about this, and everyone that we’ve shopped around the draft maps to has been super excited as well because this is a way for people to actually visualize not only what are clean energy jobs, but what their actual pathway might be for a career in this space. So we’re really excited about it.
The jobs will show salary information. It will show training opportunities. It will show what kind of training is required for this. And we plan to have this release launched in April of this year. So we’re really excited about that.
Reid Frazier: And do you see this sector growing because of recently passed legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law passed and signed under President Joe Biden?
Ginette Walker Vinski: Absolutely. We’re seeing several investments in southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond that are helping to contribute to the clean energy economy. Eos and Form Energy are two companies that are leading in this space. There’s also Orion and Mitsubishi Electric that just recently established solar arrays in Fayette County – that’s another company that’s doing incredible work and really leading in this space. So it’s happening and it’s happening here in the greater Pittsburgh region.
Reid Frazier: For those who don’t know Form Energy and Eos [Energy Enterprises] are both companies working on manufacturing batteries in the region for a long-term energy storage – that’s important to increasing the amount of renewable energy on the grid.
President Trump has come out against renewable energy sources like wind. What potential problems does a Trump administration pose to the momentum you’re citing in this report?
Ginette Walker Vinski: I would look at this as an opportunity for increased leadership in southwestern Pennsylvania from not only our local governments, our municipalities and our counties, but also the businesses that have seen the benefits of increased investment in their companies, whether it’s through installing solar arrays or other types of manufacturing and construction support and having that leadership really continue to drive the momentum forward for building and sustaining this clean energy economy and really capturing the momentum that we’ve gained over the last four years.
Ginette Walker Vinski is acting deputy director at Sustainable Pittsburgh.
