Renewable energy jobs are booming in Texas

Over five years as an oil and gas contract worker, Kamal Ramoutar was laid off at least 10 times, always returning to his job as a safety technician when he was hired onto a new project. Not this time. Ramoutar, who was laid off again after oil prices crashed in the spring of 2020, is pursuing a new career in energy as a solar panel installer, a career he hopes will provide more stability as renewables expand with national and global efforts to slow climate change. The Labor Department projects that wind turbine technicians will have the fastest rate of growth rate of all occupations between 2019 and 2029, adding jobs at a 61 percent pace. Jobs for solar panel installers are expected to grow by 51 percent, compared to 31 percent for derrick operators, the fastest growing oil and gas occupation. “Oil and gas will always be there,” Ramoutar said, “but I think the old way of life is in fossil fuels.”

Ramoutar was one of 10 trainees learning to install solar panels at an 18,000-acre job site in El Campo, about 73 miles south of downtown Houston. It’s part of a Texas Workforce Commission-funded partnership between Lone Star College and Workrise, a workforce development company, to train workers to install solar-power arrays. The workforce commission awarded the group about $180,000 to retrain 100 workers after the COVID-19 pandemic left many without work. Wind turbine service technicians earn a median salary of $56,230 a year and solar installers about $46,500 a year, according to the Labor Department. A derrick operator has a median salary of $47,920. Demand for entry-level workers to build out renewable energy projects is beginning to reach a fever pitch in Texas, where more wind and solar capacity is expected to be added to the grid in the coming months and years than anywhere else in the country, said Ken Medlock III, director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute. ERCOT estimates the amount of solar capacity alone could more than double by May 2022, growing to more than 17,000 megawatts from about 7,000 megawatts in April. One megawatt is enough to power about 200 Texas homes on hot summer day. Enel Green Power, one of the world’s largest renewable energy producers based in Italy, said this month it would build its largest solar farm in North America just southeast of Waco.