Texas blackout: Where are new energy jobs?

When millions of Texans lost power during the coldest weather to hit the Lone Star State in seven decades, Republican Governor Greg Abbott blamed frozen wind turbines and other forms of clean energy for the greatest forced blackout in US history. Never mind that the grid operator in the second-largest state said alternative energy, generating 25% of its winter supply, contributed less than 13% to the outage, while fossil fuels — the overwhelming source of electricity — failed twice as much in the debacle.
Lost in Abbott’s false narrative excoriating Democrats’ Green New Deal is the reality that renewable energy is a boon to Texas, which is among the world’s biggest contributors to global warming, and to the rest of the US Renewables have been the fastest-growing source of new jobs during the past two years after e-commerce in discretionary consumer goods.
Large and small publicly traded companies in the Russell 3000 increased their workforce at an annual average of 9%. But the 13 alternative-energy companies, including Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar Inc. and San Jose, California-based SunPower Corp, grew more than 2 1/2 times that rate, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The blackout in Texas, whose energy transmission isn’t connected to the rest of the US grid, underlined the need for nationwide power lines and storage systems that can supply electricity whenever and wherever demand suddenly surges.
The disaster also marks a turning point for corporate America. Since 2018, employment growth has increasingly favoured clean-energy companies, which weren’t among the top 10 industries hiring the most people as recently as 2014. Even with its minuscule 0.2% in the Russell 3000, renewable energy punches way above its weight as a significant employer, more than doubling its annual hiring during the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Tesla Inc, for example, employed fewer than 900 people when it launched the all-electric, zero-emission Model S sedan almost a decade ago in Fremont, California. Tesla’s worldwide workforce has increased more than 53 times since then to 48,000. Its market capitalisation appreciated more than 300 times to $755 billion, representing 2.2% of the S&P 500 index.
Chief executive officer Elon Musk’s recent move to Texas, where Tesla is building a factory outside Austin to meet growing demand for its vehicles, underscores the irony of Governor Abbott’s disparagement of clean energy in his state: The technology’s most affluent and visible champion has just become a new resident responsible for ever more jobs.
Tesla has added employees at an annual rate of 41% during past five years and created a total of 51,000 jobs in California, including workers throughout its supply chain. The hiring outlook for most of the auto industry is dismal by comparison. General Motors Co reduced its workforce
by an annualised 5%. Toyota Motor Corp and Volkswagen AG, No. 1 and No. 2 in vehicle sales with a combined 46% of Tesla’s market capitalisation, increased at rates of just 1% and 3%, respectively.
Clean energy, still in its infancy, is exploding. Plug Power Inc, a Latham, New York-based provider of zero-emission fuel-cell solutions, saw employment rise 38% during each of the past two years. Enphase Energy Inc, the Petaluma, California-based maker of solar panel systems, has experienced 31% annual labour growth since 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

—Bloomberg