Filling the skill gap in India’s clean energy market: solar energy focus
India’s goal to dramatically expand solar energy could trigger a green jobs boom adding one million new engineers, technicians, solar installers, maintenance workers and performance data monitors to its workforce, according to a new report released in connection with a “Make in India” conference in Mumbai. The report by Natural Resources Defense Council and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water outlines the types of new jobs and new training facilities and institutes needed for India to reach its ambitious national target to add 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar energy by 2022. The report, Filling the Skill Gap in India’s Clean Energy Market: Solar Energy Focus, provides details about how India’s 100 GW solar target would generate more than 1 million jobs by 2022, primarily in two key phases of a solar project’s lifecycle: construction and commissioning (806,800, accounting for 72% of new solar jobs) and ongoing operations and maintenance (263,400, 23% of new solar jobs). These projections do not include jobs created in the manufacturing sector, another significant jobs opportunity. Forty solar companies were surveyed to formulate this analysis, in addition to multiple roundtable discussions with industry and government representatives.