Clean Energy Jobs See Sharp Spike In India

NEW DELHI: India's ambitious aim to install 160 GW of renewable energy by 2022 will have a positive impact on the country's jobs market, a new study has predicted.

The study says that more than 300,000 full-time workers will be needed in these five years and there's potential to create around one million employment opportunities.

Of the many segments of the renewables sector, the labour-intensive rooftop solar component will employ as much as 70 pct of the new workforce, creating seven times more jobs than large-scale projects such as solar farms, said the study titled Greening India's Workforce: Gearing Up For Expansion of Solar and Wind Power in India.

The report, published this month by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a New Delhi-based think tank, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a New York-based environmental advocacy group, said that the strong growth in the domestic solar manufacturing industry could provide full-time employment for an additional 45,000 people in India.

The study estimated that India's clean energy goals have the potential to put 34,583 people to work in wind power, 58,647 in utility-scale solar farms and 237,980 in rooftop solar energy jobs over the next five years. The solar energy jobs will be distributed across India, with Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh setting the pace. The wind sector jobs, like wind power capacity, are likely to be concentrated in a few states that have high wind potential.

"CEEW and NRDC's study captures a new dimension in accurately assessing manpower requirements in the solar and wind domains," Praveen Saxena, Chief Executive Officer of Skill Council of Green Jobs, said in a statement. "This study builds on earlier analyses on the subject considering national objectives to meet India's international clean energy commitments. It makes the path of Skill Council of Green Jobs more clear and visible in terms of capturing the opportunity of employability in India's solar and wind sector."

NRDC and CEEW have annually surveyed India's solar and wind companies, developers and manufacturers over the past three years to collect market-based information on jobs created, workforce employed and the skills required to achieve India's renewable energy goals.

Read Also:
Samsung Cuts Manpower For 1st Time In 7 Years
GST Rollout To Create One Lakh Jobs In Three Months, Says Minister
Source: IANS