Recent renewable industry news suggests hundreds of thousands of jobs in the future

There’s no getting away from it, 2020 was a difficult year for most people. But underneath the horrible headlines and fear, the renewables industry has been quietly getting on with things. All over the globe, recent industry updates paint a promising future for green energy. Signs are positive that investment and job creation in this sector will continue to expand.

As part of the Bloomberg New Energy Outlook 2020, came the news that the world has built a record-breaking 100GW of windfarms in 2020. While the majority of new wind, over 90GW, is still being built onshore, there were still significant gains for offshore developments.

As expected, China is out in front on increasing capacity and built close to 60GW last year. That is more than the entire world built in 2019. Although some of this larger than expected boost came from developers looking to take advantage of government subsidies before they are removed, it still represents a significant step in China’s renewable energy drive. A similar tax credit scheme in the US that is soon to be phase out, helped push their new wind capacity to over 16GW. Another record for wind power.

In another uplifting forecast, Rystad Energy has predicted a surge in offshore wind related jobs. Their analysis suggests a need for close to 900,000 jobs by 2030. A tripling of the 2020 estimate of 300,000. They see this growth becoming visible in the first half of this decade, with a need of close to 600,000 jobs by 2025.

Unsurprisingly, they see a greater percentage increase in operations and maintenance (O&M) as more fields come online, with 12% of all offshore wind related employment being O&M by 2025. They also predict significant increases in construction and development and still expect these jobs to dominate. Rystad Energy estimate the jobs created will be distributed across all regions, with Europe, Asia and the Americas all seeing significant increases. But they do see signs that China’s demand may stagnate towards the end of the decade.

The new American administration has wasted no time reversing green energy cuts imposed by the previous incumbents. Another hopeful sign was announced when the Bureau of Ocean Management declared they had completed the environmental review for the Vineyard Wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts. This is an 800MW project close to Martha’s Vineyard and represents a significant step in the US renewables industry.

The project is hoping to generate first power in 2023 and will be the first real full-scale commercial offshore wind project in the US. Hoping to supply 400,000 homes and reduce electricity rates the project is a flagship for the nascent US industry. The Vineyard Wind farm will create thousands of sorely needed jobs for the offshore renewables sector in the States.

The North East of England is also set for a welcome jobs boost as the British government announced plans to build two new offshore wind facilities at the ports of Humber and Teesside. Announcing the creation of up to 6,000 jobs, the two new facilities will be used to construct wind turbines. The financing comes from the £160 million special port infrastructure fund the government announced last autumn.

Set to break ground later this year, both the Able Marine Energy Park on the Humber and the Teesworks Offshore Manufacturing Centre on the Tees, will soon be undergoing significant upgrades.  It is hoped they will support up to 9GW of offshore wind projects per year once fully operational. GE Renewable Energy will be one of the companies to benefit with their upgraded facility producing turbine blades for the Dogger Bank project.

It’s reassuring to know that after such a difficult time, the renewables sector is still looking to the future.