Workforce Committee

Britt Theisman (AWEA): Currently, the U.S. has about 2,500 people trained for wind turbine operations and maintenance, but the 20 by 2030 goal will require 70,000.

Dr. Andrew Swift
July 14, 2009
Before the Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, U.S. House of Representatives

The DOE 2030 report estimates a wind energy workforce of 180,000 direct jobs at full capacity. Estimates by Texas Tech University economics faculty and Wind Science and Engineering staff estimate that approximately 20 to 25,000 of these will be professional jobs requiring a university education. Significant wind energy programs at universities require active and knowledgeable faculty and strong student enrollment. It is very important that universities partner in real and synergistic ways with industry and DOE laboratory personnel in these research programs. Not only do the faculty and student researchers bring new ideas and innovation to the research agenda, they bring the connections back to the university for new programs in wind energy and opportunities for students. Wind energy is strongly multidisciplinary and faculty and students are needed to support this industry not only in engineering for new turbine designs and development, but also in atmospheric science for wind and power forecasting and resource assessment, in ecology to study and minimize wildlife impacts, in project management and financial analysis, in agriculture and economics to integrate the technology with agriculture interests throughout the central US wind corridor, and so forth. Inclusion of strong university, industry and government research and education funding and partnerships are crucial to effective wind energy workforce development in support of this industry.
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20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030 (pages 70-71): “One concern is that the number of students in power engineering programs has been dropping in recent years. Currently, U.S. graduate power engineering programs produce about 500 engineers per year; in the 1980s, this number approached 2,000.”