NY colleges are training students to lead statewide push toward green energy. Here's how
Thomas C. Zambito- Religious leaders from Harlem to Buffalo are hoping the green economy will provide opportunities for young people
- Avangrid has gotten behind the effort as it works to attract more workers into the renewables field
- Welders are being trained to build wind turbines that will generate electricity off the Long Island coast.
New York is partnering with its struggling community colleges to train students from disadvantaged communities for the thousands of green energy jobs that will be created in the coming years as the state pursues ambitious climate goals.
Two dozen community colleges, many dealing with steep enrollment declines, have joined the state’s bid for a federal grant that would provide $25 million in training for jobs in the green economy – building wind turbines, retrofitting buildings for electric heat, installing electric car-charging stations and wiring solar panels.
The grant would support the training of 2,000 new workers and another 1,500 working in fossil fuel generation whose jobs are likely to be lost as the state works toward the twin goals of 70% renewable generation by 2030 and zero carbon emissions by 2040.
“New York stands to see 10 jobs added in the growing clean energy sectors for every job potentially displaced," said Doreen Harris, who heads the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. "So what we’re really talking about is literally hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the state by 2030 and beyond.”
The green economy influenced 17% of jobs in 2019, and that is likely to grow as the scope of what's considered a "green job" widens, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a February report on jobs in New York's sustainable economy.
"The green workforce is broader than the jobs that often come to mind," DiNapoli said. "In fact, most green jobs are found in well-established occupations, such as laborers, electricians and other technicians, for whom measures to address climate change, improve energy efficiency, reduce pollution and enhance sustainability may further increase demand for their services."
Priority for the college training will go to individuals from disadvantaged or low-income communities, in keeping with the state’s goal that 40% of benefits from spending on clean energy go toward these populations. Environmental justice advocates have made the case that communities that endured generations of adverse health effects from pollution should reap the benefits from the massive renewable buildout.
It has the backing of religious and community leaders from Harlem to Buffalo, who see a path to good-paying jobs for young people with high-school educations and little interest in a four-year degree.
“We can save the community financially while we save the world environmentally,” said the Rev. Kahli Mootoo, the pastor of Harlem’s Emanuel AME Church and co-founder of The 400 Foundation, launched in 2019 on the 400th anniversary of the year the first slave ship arrived in Virginia. The group of faith leaders is dedicated to finding jobs in construction and development for people in communities of color.
“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, you needed only a high school education and you could go into the construction field and you could live the American dream,” Mootoo said. “You can make a good salary, get a house, a car, send your kids to college. We see the same opportunities for people in marginalized communities with green jobs, many of whom may not have access to college, or they don’t feel they are college material, but they have skills and they have good intelligence.”
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Training welders for offshore wind
The proposal, which needs the approval of a federal jobs funding program, would complement parallel efforts at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy and La Guardia Community College in Long Island City to train students to work in offshore wind.
At Hudson Valley, a newly built $1.5 million welding lab will teach students how to build wind turbines at the Port of Albany that will be sent to the Long Island coast to provide electricity for New York City and Long Island. And La Guardia plans to train 50 low-income students from Brooklyn and Queens to work as offshore wind technicians.
The schools will share a grant of $570,000, which comes out of the state’s $20 million investment in the Offshore Wind Training Institute, a partnership between SUNY Farmingdale and Stony Brook University on Long Island.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the awards in January, the same month she said the state would invest another $500 million in offshore wind ports, manufacturing, and its supply chain.
NY could see 270K green energy jobs
In the coming years, there will be jobs in electrification, offshore wind, solar manufacturing and heating and air conditioning. In all, nearly 270,000 jobs.
“And now what we’re doing is we’re working on the ground to bring forward the training opportunities to align skills with needs,” said Harris of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. “And with a strong focus on the topic of equity. How do we bring forward jobs in places that are historically left behind?”
It’s not only New York. There’s been a dramatic surge in green energy jobs over the past five years, according to a report released Tuesday by LinkedIn, which used information from its 800 million users to produce its 2022 Global Green Skills Report.
The number of jobs in renewables and the environment has increased by 237% compared to 19% in oil and gas jobs.
“At this pace, we are predicting that the renewables & environment sector will outnumber oil & gas in total jobs on our platform by 2023,” the report noted.
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Where will the workers come from?
The idea for the community college participation came from Avangrid, which operates eight electric and natural gas utilities in New York and New England. It was tucked into the company’s proposal to install 108 miles of underground cable that would deliver renewable energy along rights-of-way from Monticello to Queens.
The Excelsior Connect ended up losing out to two other companies with plans to bring solar, wind and hydro power from upstate and Canada along the Hudson River. But, with the state’s backing, the company pushed ahead with the community college idea.
“When you look at the workforce that we as a utility have today, it’s not all MBA’s, lawyers and engineers,” Avangrid CEO Dennis Arriola said. “This is going to help us identify people that maybe didn’t know that these opportunities were available… They’re good middle-class, paying jobs that, with training, people can enter the workforce and make a good living.”
Avangrid has promised to kick in $500,000 towards the effort.
The Rev. Paul Thomas of the Bethel AME Church in Buffalo has begun talking to young people in his congregation about potential opportunities.
“I think this community is one whose hopes have been lifted and dropped several times and I’ve started having smaller conversations with small pockets of young people about the commerce of tomorrow, talking about the industry of tomorrow, clean energy, because that’s the direction we need to go if we’re going to be decent stewards of the earth,” Thomas said.
Thomas wants to stall what he calls “the great diaspora,” that sends young men and women from Buffalo in search of better-paying jobs elsewhere, hollowing out the communities they leave behind. Bethel is the oldest Black congregation in western New York.
Charting a career path
At Candace Eustace’s electrification class at Hudson Valley, word of renewable opportunities is just beginning to trickle down to the aspiring electricians who are getting hands-on training in a lab that resembles a construction site.
Several students signed up for the two-year program in the hopes of becoming linew, working in the air on utility poles. Others weighed the possibility of becoming wind turbine technicians, which ranked among the three fastest growing jobs in the green economy, according to the LinkedIn report.
“This is an excellent foundation for any path,” said Eustace, a former high school librarian who became an electrician 12 years ago. “They’re able to see all the different pathways that they could go into because there are a lot of different ways you can go into the electrical field.”
That sort of “versatility” is what drew Taye George, 19, a graduate of Albany High School, to the program. He’s considering work as a lineman or in commercial wiring.
“It’s mind-wracking trying to know exactly which wires go where,” George said, during a break. “I’m getting better.”
Mykel Blanks, 29, of Hudson, was working as a truck driver delivering food to restaurants and healthcare facilities when he struck up a conversation with a National Grid utility lineman and decided he’d give the career path a try.
He’s enjoyed the transition.
“Anybody can twist wires together, but you have to understand how it works,” Blanks said. “That’s the main thing. And how to trouble shoot and fix something if it’s not working.”
Demand likely to gain momentum in energy fields
Hudson Valley Community College turns out about 200 electricians every year. Every one of them has a job waiting for them when they graduate, said Penny Hill, the dean of Economic Development and Workforce Initiatives at the college.
“What keeps me awake at night is where are we going to get these people from,” Hill said. “We cannot go anywhere without seeing the desperation in the employer’s eyes and hearing them say, ‘We could do so much more if we had more people.’”
Demand is only going to increase in the coming years, as building developers, enticed by government incentives, abandon oil and gas heat in favor of electric. And millions of electric cars are expected to come on the market.
All that will put additional stress on the state’s electric grid. By 2040, peak demand for energy will shift from the summer to winter when electricity will be needed to heat buildings and charge cars, according to the New York Independent System Operator, which oversees the grid.
Hudson Valley’s welding program, which started in the fall, is already growing.
It’s being helped along by a virtual welding tool – a video game for welders – that allows students to test out their skills without fear of injury.
“People don’t get burned,” Hill said. “You don’t waste a lot of materials and you have a great experience.”
Thirty-five have signed up for the program next year, up from six. “I think the interest is growing because they’re aware that these are good-paying jobs with benefits,” Hill said.
Thomas Zambito covers growth and transportation for USA Today Network's New York State team. He can be reached by email at Tzambito@lohud.com, or on Twitter at @tomzambito.