Diane Bernard
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The nation’s clean-energy industry has been hit hard by the pandemic’s economic downturn, and a new report urges policymakers to target stimulus funding to revive the once-thriving sector.
In West Virginia, before COVID-19 struck, the state had 7,100 clean-energy jobs. Now, the number is down to about 6,000; a 13.5% decline.
Pat Stanton, director of policy at E4TheFuture, which put out the report along with environmental group E2, said in a state where fossil-fuel jobs in mining have fallen for years, energy-efficiency jobs represent future growth.
“A very significant portion of the energy-efficiency workers in West Virginia are over 55,” Stanton observed. “That means that over the next decade, it’s likely that there will be a lot of turnover. That means a lot of new openings for folks who are already in the industry to move up and for people to enter.”
The report showed almost 400,000 clean-energy workers nationwide have lost their jobs during the pandemic. The industry employed almost 2.4 million before March.
Stanton pointed out during the Great Recession, investments in clean-energy jobs led the way to economic recovery. She thinks it could happen again if Congress would pass a stimulus package that earmarks money for energy-efficiency companies.
“One of the big benefits of investing in energy efficiency is you can get private investment to pay for part of the work because energy savings can be used to pay off the loans,” Stanton noted. “So it can be leveraged; we can get a lot of people to work.”
The report showed clean-energy jobs in the U.S. grew 2.3% in 2019, about twice the rate of nationwide employment growth.
Until the pandemic, nine states saw these jobs increase by more than 4%, including New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado.