Solar’s job outlook dims
Solar jobs in Massachusetts continue to decline in number, indicating the state has not yet begun its recovery since the downward trend last year, according to a new assessment by IT company Cognizant.
The analysis, titled “Jobs of the Future Index,” points to tough times for the environmental industry. Solar energy installers, a position identified in the report, saw a 55 percent decrease in job demand.
Critics say the index inaccurately represents the health of the solar industry, adding that Massachusetts is still ranked second in solar jobs across the nation, right behind California.
“Its findings are off-base. First, the study doesn’t measure jobs, but rather job postings, which is not an accurate way to assess the health of an industry’s workforce,” said Alex Hobson, communications director for trade nonprofit Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). He added that since researchers were only looking at job postings that contained certain keywords, it was “not indicative of the market as a whole.”
That said, industry leaders concede that the number of renewable jobs in solar declined last year.
“As of 2017, we found there are 11,530 solar jobs in Massachusetts,” said Avery Palmer, a communication director at Solar Foundation, a national nonprofit that advances solar energy. “That’s a decrease of just over 3,000 jobs from 2016, when Massachusetts had 14,582 solar jobs.
“One likely reason for the jobs decline was that the state’s new policy incentives for solar energy had not been announced yet, and there was a great deal of uncertainty over what they would look like.”
Since then, Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, or SMART, had been introduced over the summer and the organization says it will see if the rollout last month will improve the job forecast for 2018 and 2019. SMART would expand solar power in the state while lowering energy rates for customers, saving ratepayers an estimated $4.7 billion compared with existing programs.
Despite the decline, the solar industry expects an additional 1,726 megawatts of solar energy over the next five years in Massachusetts, says SEIA.
A megawatt can power 164 households, says SEIA, adding that nearly 370,000 homes in the Bay State run on solar. Furthermore, prices have sharply declined over the last five years, at 47 percent, for consumers and businesses, a sign that the industry is going in the right direction.
To complicate matters earlier this year, SEIA said in September the data from Q1 2018 "clearly show that tariffs took a bite out of the solar market,” leading cancellations or delays of previously announced projects. However, a rebound is imminent for the industry as project procurement soared in Q2 2018.