[Source: San Francisco Chronicle] Jobs in California’s once-steadily growing solar power sector fell for the second straight year in 2018, part of a nationwide decline amid uncertainty caused by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and challenges at the state level.
While the state remains the largest source of solar industry employment, jobs fell 11 percent last year to 76,838 workers, according to the annual survey released Tuesday by the nonprofit Solar Foundation. Nationwide, solar jobs fell 3.2 percent to 242,343 workers, the report found.
The foundation pinned the national solar jobs decline largely on an effort from certain U.S. manufacturers to get the federal government to place tariffs on imported solar modules and cells. The Trump administration imposed the tariffs last January, but uncertainty around the measure’s outcome led to a delay in solar projects, particularly for large utility-scale developments that have longer timelines, the report said.
State-level factors were also a key reason for the decline, the Solar Foundation determined. In California, those included utilities facing less pressure to meet renewable energy portfolio standards because they’ve already made substantial progress and policy uncertainties about rate structures for installers in the non-residential market, according to the report.
Experts still see opportunities on the horizon, including California’s rooftop solar mandate for most new homes, which takes effect in 2020, and the state’s commitment to get 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2045. A Green New Deal, if passed by Congress, would also help, said Solar Foundation executive director Andrea Luecke.
“Climate change is the headline and jobs is part of the common denominator,” Luecke said. “We see a very bright future, and I think that the Green New Deal, along with all of the 100 percent renewable commitments that states and cities are making, is a very, very positive indicator as to where we’re headed — and where we need to be headed very quickly.”
The latest solar jobs survey was conducted between September and October and was administered to nearly 14,000 firms, of which nearly 3,500 provided some amount of information and about 2,700 provided full or substantial information, the foundation said. The sampling process has a margin of error of 1.45 percent.
The report found that about two-thirds of the total solar jobs are in installation and project development, of which 56 percent are focused specifically on the residential market.
“What we’re seeing on the ground, especially in California, is that there is still strong demand,” said Alex McDonough, vice president of public policy at San Francisco’s Sunrun. “As long as we continue having consistent, stable policy, the outlook remains very good.”
Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Association, said state policy changes to net energy metering — how costumers that generate their own energy and feed it back to the grid are credited — and rate structures made the economics of rooftop solar installations more difficult.
“The whole market is driven by consumers being able to save money,” she said. “If you change the economics — like the payback period of ‘I’m going to invest in these solar panels and it’s going to save me money in five years’ — if you change that calculation, you’re going to have a direct impact on sales.”
Del Chiaro said the rooftop solar mandate will help, but she expects the full impact will not be felt immediately. And while California’s aggressive renewable energy goal is also a positive for solar, state leaders need to do more to actually promote more contracts being signed, she said.
“There’s reason to continue to be optimistic, but we’ve just had a rough two years,” Del Chiaro said, pointing out “the irony of the rough state-level market on the ground … while there’s a lot of excitement about goals on paper.”
Del Chiaro said solar advocates will continue to promote solar energy storage, which is one area that’s already a bright spot for Sunrun in particular. About 25 percent of the solar company’s new installations in California now include a battery, which will help customers manage their energy use as the state is shifting to charging rates based on demand during the time of day, McDonough said.
“That’s transforming the residential solar industry,” he said of battery installations.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
February 12, 2019
