US renewable standard would provide sizeable jobs boost

A national renewable energy standard could create more than 274,000 more jobs in the US, according to a new study, which argues that mandatory targets for renewable energy generation would prove one of the most effective means of generating so-called "green collar jobs".

Lobby group the RES Alliance for Jobs commissioned Navigant Consulting to analyse the employment impact of proposals for a "25 per cent by 2025" renewable energy standard, which would force US energy firms to source a quarter of their energy from renewable sources.

The report concluded that the adoption of a mandatory standard would ensure new jobs in the renewable energy industry would be more evenly shared with states that would otherwise lose jobs in renewable energy enjoying significant employment gains.

In particular, the report predicted that south eastern states, notably Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Kentucky, would see sizeable job gains in the biomass, hydro power, and waste-to-energy industries as a result of a renewable energy standard.

Texas would experience the most significant boost the study argued, predicting that the introduction of a standard would create more than 20,000 new jobs in the state by 2025.

The report also predicted that over half of the direct jobs in the renewable energy sector will be in manufacturing, with just under a quarter coming from construction and craft trades. The remaining 25 per cent of jobs will be split between engineering services, operation and maintenance, administration, and management.

The study recommended that any renewable energy standard should be supported by short-term goals, which would require 12 per cent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2014 and 20 per cent by 2020.

It added that targets were necessary to protect the industry against a potential decline in growth rates that is likely to occur as current tax incentives and stimulus funding expire.

Renewable energy legislation is currently making its way through Congress, although a number of states have already implemented their own standards. The state of New Jersey recently adopted a renewable energy target based on solar power, while Colorado is now fighting to increase its existing RES from 20 to 30 per cent of its electricity mix.

Significantly, at a New Hampshire town hall meeting last week, President Obama specifically singled out renewable energy industries such as the wind energy sector as an example of how government intervention was working, arguing that many renewables companies would have gone out of business without access to stimulus funding.