Arizona holds steady in nation’s top 10 for solar industry jobs
When it comes to job growth in the solar industry, Arizona is basically holding steady year-over-year and it remains sixth in the nation, according to the nonprofit Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s (IREC) 13th-annual National Solar Jobs Census.
In all, Arizona had 8,337 solar jobs as of 2022, which was just 59 — or 0.7% — more than the number reached in 2021, when the state added more than 900 jobs and had the nation’s fourth-highest employment growth in the sector at about 12.7%.
From a five-year perspective, Arizona actually saw its total number of solar jobs slip by 0.5% between 2017 and 2022.
That trend could be continued in next year’s census after the recent move by San Francisco-based Sunrun Inc. (Nasdaq: RUN) — one of the largest providers of residential solar energy and battery storage systems in the country — to restructure its operations in the Phoenix area and lay off more than 350 local employees.
Nonetheless, the IREC report predicted strong solar employment growth of 13.3% in Arizona for 2023. The nonprofit was upbeat about the industry across the country in 2023, citing reduced supply chain concerns and a ramp-up in installations.
For its census, the IREC said it counts jobs of those in the clean energy sector who spend the majority of their time on solar-related work. When counting all workers in the industry, Arizona had 9,627 in 2022.
Most Arizona jobs in installation, project development
Across the U.S., solar industry employment was up by 3.5%, increasing by 8,846 workers from 2021 to reach a total of 263,883 workers in 2022.
“The solar industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade, overcoming one challenge after the next to provide a quarter million jobs for Americans of all educational levels and backgrounds,” said Larry Sherwood, President and CEO at IREC. “With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, we can look forward to transformational jobs growth in solar, batteries, and other clean energy industries in the years ahead.”
Nationally, California led the country in total solar jobs, where 78,116 people are employed in that sector, followed by Florida (12,267), New York (11,512), Texas (11,250) and Massachusetts (11,023).
In Arizona, most of the solar sector jobs are in installation and project development, which included 4,344 workers. After that came manufacturing (2,573 jobs), wholesale trade and distribution (785 jobs), operations and maintenance (255 jobs). The 381 remaining jobs were not classified into a category. The state has 368 solar companies.
The Grand Canyon State ranks fifth in the nation for total installed solar capacity, with 6,050 megawatts of capacity available and the equivalent of 984,047 homes in the state powered by solar. In all 9.8% of Arizona’s electricity comes from solar.
Besides solar jobs, this year’s census also tallied employment in other clean energies. It found that in Arizona, 1,478 people worked in clean storage, 1,273 in wind energy, 306 in traditional hydropower, 239 in low-impact hydropower, 154 in geothermal, 377 in macro grid, 260 in smart grid and 42,638 in energy efficiency.