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Many thousands of jobs created by USA’s renewable energy grants program

DOE: Renewable grant program was a big jobs creator Politico,  By ALEX GUILLEN | 4/6/12  A $9 billion Obama administration grant program for renewable energy projects has created tens of thousands of jobs, an Energy Department report out Friday concludes.

The report comes just one week after Speaker John Boehner slammed Energy Secretary Steven Chu over the claim and challenged him to provide proof of the jobs creation. The report — conducted by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory — concludes that the program supported 52,000 to 75,000 construction and installation jobs on average over the three years it was in effect.
Between 43,000 to 66,000 of those were indirect jobs in the supply
chain (for example, in parts manufacturing). The other roughly 9,400
of the jobs were in the design and development of renewable energy
systems.
Over the next 20 to 30 years, the projected lifetime of most projects,
projects from the so-called 1603 grant program will support between
5,100 and 5,500 jobs annually.
Those numbers apply only to large wind and photovoltaic projects,
which made up more than 90 percent of 1603 grants. Other types of
renewable energy such as geothermal, biomass and landfill gas projects
were not included in the analysis.
The stimulus-funded program provided cash once a renewable energy
project began generating electricity rather than a tax credit the
project would receive later on. It was meant to fill a hole left in
the private tax equity market by the bad economy.
Despite its popularity in the renewables sector, the program lapsed at
the end of 2011, and subsequent attempts to revive the program in
Congress have so far failed http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74916.html#ixzz1rOGAxagF

April 7, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, renewable, USA