Wind Energy Industry Brings Badly Needed Jobs to Detroit – Wind turbine manufacturer Global Wind Systems announced last week that it will be hiring 250 new employees to work in the company’s new wind turbine assembly plant in Novi, Michigan, thirty miles west of Detroit. The news brings a ray of hope for a regional economy struggle under the weight of a sinking auto industry. Read more about green jobs in Detroit.
Local Green Jobs Rise as San Francisco Solar and Energy Efficiency Incentive Programs Expand – Every day more San Francisco residents and businesses are signing up for two San Francisco programs that will cut monthly utility bills and help the City meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. One is SF Energy Watch, which provides technical assistance and financial incentives that pays over half the cost of energy efficiency upgrades to commercial and multifamily properties. The other is GoSolarSF, which, when combined with federal tax credits and state incentives, can reduce the cost of installing a residential solar power system by more than 50 percent. Read more about green jobs in San Francisco.
Terra Community College in Ohio Offers New Wind Power Certificate – To help train employees necessary for new green-collar jobs, Terra Community College will offer a new Wind Power Technology Certificate beginning this fall. The Wind Power Technology Certificate at Terra deals with the areas involved in the production of electricity from wind power, including turbines, the towers and the actual generating units. John Fellhauer of Fellhauer Mechanical Systems will be the instructor for the wind power classes. He recently announced that he and Oak Harbor resident Curtis Stokes are opening a wind turbine manufacturing company in Portage Township. Terra’s Wind Power Technology Certificate program consists of about 21 credits. Classes include: DC Circuits, Electronics, Electricity, Power Electronics, AC/DC Machines, Electrical Codes and Prints, Safety, Hydraulics, Fundamentals of Wind Energy and OSHA Standards: Wind Energy. Read more about green jobs in Ohio.
New Study Shows That Investment in Solar Generating Facilities Could Bring Thousands of Jobs to Nevada – A recent study from Vote Solar entitled The Sun Rises On Nevada: Economic and Environmental Impacts of Developing 2,000 MW of Large-Scale Solar Power Plants, concluded that 2,000 MW projects in the state of Nevada could bring to the state 5,900 construction jobs a year during the plants’ building phase, 1,200 permanent jobs and half a billion dollars in tax revenues. Vote Solar’s job projections are based on an economic model developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to project the impact of new solar power projects. A second report released this week by the Large-Scale Solar Association found that Nevada could gain an edge over Arizona and California in luring solar power plant builders if it extended and sweetened tax incentives. The three states form something of a golden triangle of solar, offering the nation’s most intense sunshine and vast tracts of government-owned desert land that are being opened up for solar development. Read more about green jobs in Nevada.
Green Initiatives Bring New Jobs to Brooklyn Navy Yard – New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Sunday announced the opening of the Perry Avenue Building and plans to establish the Duggal Greenhouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which are part of the City’s Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan to create jobs and facilitate long-term economic growth. The green initiatives are poised to bring 1,700 new permanent jobs and 800 construction jobs to the region. Read more about green jobs in New York.
Planned ‘Solar City’ in Florida to Bring 20,000 Jobs to The Region – A Florida developer wants to build a planned community in southwest Florida the would be the first to be entirely powered by the sun. Florida Power & Light wants to build a $350 million, 75-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant to power the $2 billion Babcock Ranch planned community near Fort Myers. It would place Babcock Ranch in the running with the Masdar City project to become the first “zero-emissions” city. The development near Fort Myers would sport 6 million square feet of energy efficient buildings and an integrated “smart grid” to let homes and businesses monitor and control their energy consumption. They hope to draw a host of green technology startups and research projects to their energy efficient, solar-powered office parks. Babcock Ranch is expected to create about 20,000 jobs. Construction at the 17,000-acre communityis expected to begin next year. Read more about green jobs in Florida.
