Why no one knows how many green energy jobs exist in Hawaii

When Hawaii had an order to change from fossil fuels to renewable energy into power over the next 30 years, it wasn't just about saving the planet. It was also about strengthening the state's economy.

Importing billions of dollars of fuel from Hawaii every year, the Legislature found, and renewable energies could lead to drains and taps "an explosion of new markets, jobs and local energy resources."

Five years after enacting the 2015 historic law, Hawaii goes against generating all electricity sold in the state with renewable resources by 2045. More than a quarter of the state's electricity needs were met with renewable energy in 2018, Hawaiian Electric Industries it said in its 2018 annual report.

And exactly how many new jobs have been created? The short answer is nobody knows.

Large solar farms like this one on Kauai help to wipe out fossil fuel Hawaii, but the number of jobs created in the renewable sector is unclear.

Nathan Eagle / Civil Beat

There are many jobs, no doubt, from salesmen and electricians who sell and install solar systems to lawyers who specialize in regulatory law and draw up purchase agreements between wind and solar parks and the utilities. But exactly how many jobs there are is not clear. Estimates range from several thousand to well over 10,000.

Problem: The explosion of renewable energy technology has happened so quickly, in Hawaii and elsewhere, that the usual sources of job statistics have not caught up. A key issue is that jobs with clean energy often fall into a number of job classifications that may at all seem unrelated to energy, much less renewable energy. For example, an electrician who specializes in solar cell installations can be classified as an electrician.

The result is that, at best, time data is small. Even the federal government's venerable Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces labor data and reports such as the Consumer Price Index to track inflation, says the number of renewable energy is not the best.

Meanwhile, the latest report produced by the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industry dates back to 2015, and the estimates are far below those published in a U.S. Department of Energy report published in 2017. State Energy officials say the federal DOE report has the best available data, but even that report is years old.

Having a reliable number of renewable energy jobs is important because data often drives politics. Politicians are still adjusting laws and regulations to move the state to its goal of 100% renewable energy. And the program's ability to create jobs can be a litmus test for lawmakers who decide whether to support it, said Will Giese, executive director of the Hawaii Solar Energy Association.

"Every legislator wants to know, what is the effect of the job?" he said. "How many jobs does this create?"

The problem, Giese said, is that there is no official data source that is authoritative, comprehensive and up-to-date. At least not one he knows about.

"If you can find it, please let me know," he said.

To be sure, numbers exist. They are just old, incomplete or produced from sources of potential bias, or a combination of these.

The perhaps most comprehensive report on clean energy in Hawaii, for example, was produced in April 2018 by the Rhodium Group for Elemental Excelerator, a business incubator focused on renewable energy startup. The study pegged Hawaii's 15,660 renewable energy jobs, including industries such as clean fuel, energy storage, efficiency and electricity generation.

It was in the same ballpark as the figures in a U.S. Department of Energy 2017 report that reported less than 13,000 jobs related to renewable energy out of a total of around 17,000 jobs in Hawaii, including efficiency, alternative fuel and solar and wind production.

Solar energy jobs alone accounted for more than 4,800 jobs nationwide, the energy department said. This is about 25% higher than the Hawaii solar projections. It is estimated that there are around 4,000 jobs nationwide, Giese said, including positions installing and designing rooftop solar photovoltaic systems.

Meanwhile, Hawaiian Electric Co. About 200 full-time positions focused on renewable energy, including jobs that work on rooftop solar systems and procure power from major wind and solar parks, said Shannon Tangonan, a spokeswoman for HECO.

If the differences between these sources seem large, consider figures from a report from the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization released in August. Although the report focused on "natural resource management" jobs, such as positions with the State Department of Land and Natural Resources, it included a section on energy jobs and had figures from a 2015 State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations report based on a examination.

DLIR estimates the number of green energy jobs to be around 4,900 in 2015 compared to just over 3,800 in 2010.

The latest data, from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows incredibly low estimates of green energy jobs in Hawaii. Estimates for March 2019 put state jobs related to solar power generation at just 57, compared to just over 2,000 jobs related to fossil fuel power generation.

U.S. Labor Statistics Statistics Do Not Count All Solar Jobs

Rick Wise, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C., said it is probably better to rely on the 2017 Department of Energy report, which was based on surveys. The limitation of the BLS numbers, he said, is that they may not capture solar energy jobs that are captured under different occupation categories.

It was not until 2012 that solar energy production got its own industrial category in the North American industrial classification. System, which the agency uses to count jobs, Wise said.

"Even then, we don't have an industry code for certain things related to the solar industry," he said.

The Sun Industry Association's Giese said a device that the Hawaii State Energy Office should step up and start getting data. But Alan Yonan Jr., a spokesman for the office, said the energy office does not have staff economists to do such an analysis.

And while Yonan said the DOE report for 2017 had the best available data, Eugene Tian, ​​who runs the State for Research and Economic Analysis, said that the office does not have the money to conduct such a study and that it would be difficult to recreate DOE's methodology.

The DOE study involved extensive telephone surveys of employers.

Bill Kuntsman, a spokesman for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, agreed that good data is not easy to get.

"Sometimes John Q. Public thinks the government just has all these statistics," he said. "But that's not always the case."

The "Hawaii Changing Economy" series is supported by a grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation as part of its CHANGE Framework project.