The fastest-growing job market in America

Solar jobs have been on a rapid rise over the last decade in the United States, with an increase of over 167 percent in that time period. Between 2018-2019, the solar workforce added more than 5,600 jobs nationwide, bringing the national total to just under 250,000 solar workers in America. In the past five years, solar employment has risen five times faster than overall job growth in the U.S. economy.

With nearly 250,000 jobs in the U.S., solar energy is one of the fastest-growing job sectors in the country, offering a variety of positions with a wide range of compensation and benefits.

Solar power is a great investment for grocery stores to get a better handle on their electricity cost and business expenses predictability. There are financing options available to help pay for solar power arrays, in addition to a variety of federal, state, and local incentives meant to make solar more affordable to a wide number of businesses. There’s also net metering that allows solar arrays to sell power back to the electric grid for credit towards future energy needs.

After the Solar Builder readers cast their votes to choose our annual Project of the Year winners, Solar Builder’s editor picked his favorites among the Project of the Year field of nominees in a variety of categories from the Most Resilient to the Coolest Carport. One of the All Energy Solar install projects was a winner in the 2020 Solar Builder Editor’s Choice Awards!

We’ve known that the U.S. solar industry has been one of America’s premier job-creating machines. Last year alone, the sector added 5,600 jobs, bringing the total number of Americans working in solar to roughly 250,000. But what does the solar industry workforce look like?

Location. Location. Location.

10 States (California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Arizona, Ohio, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada) make up more than half of the United States’ solar jobs. California leads all states with almost 75,000 of the nearly 250,000 solar industry jobs in the U.S. If you’re looking for a career in the solar industry and don’t live in one of those states, don’t worry because many other states are following closely behind. Georgia, Florida, Utah, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Indiana, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Illinois all saw double-digit job growth over the previous year—with Georgia leading the way with a whopping 29.8 percent job growth.

A typical 50,000-square-foot grocery store can spend $250,000 annually on electricity, and unless they run on renewable energy, that results in about 1,900 tons of CO2 emitting into the atmosphere, the carbon equivalent to running 360 vehicles for one year!

Unlike other large-scale energy production sources, solar energy has minimal drawbacks and many significant benefits. However, there are several often-overlooked benefits that solar can provide.

Grocery stores are some of the biggest consumers of energy in the retail industry, making them prime candidates for investing in solar power. In addition to the typical heating, cooling and lighting of most buildings, grocery stores also have refrigerators, freezers and other types of cold cases that can take up between one-third and one-half of a supermarket’s footprint - and up to 80 percent of their energy costs. That’s not even taking into account larger supermarkets that might have bakeries, butchers, restaurants and other high energy specialty installations.

A new report out for 2020 from The International Renewable Energy Agency reveals that renewable energy, and solar in particular, is proving to be a flexible, cost-effective, and resilient source of job creation, even during the strain of a global health crisis and economic downturn. So what does the solar job market look like?