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veterans

Stabbed In The Back, Part Infinity: Veterans Could Lose SunShot Solar Energy Job Training Program

by Tina Casey February 14, 2017

Originally published on CleanTechnica
by Tina Casey

It looks like President Trump has some ‘splaining to do. After successfully appealing to military veterans on the campaign trail, the new Commander-in-Chief hasn’t exactly been doing them any favors during his first week in office. To take just one example, the massive cuts planned for the Department of Energy could pull the rug out from under the agency’s popular SunShot Solar Ready Vets job training program.

If SunShot has been ringing your bell in the last couple of days, that’s probably because the Intertubes went into full hair on fire mode when word spread that the staff of the department has been ordered not to share their work on social media. Reportedly the blackout applies to private accounts as well as the Energy Department’s @ENERGY Twitter and other social media throughout the division that includes SunShot, the Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.

What Is This SunShot Of Which You Speak?

For those of you new to the topic, SunShot was authorized with bipartisan support during the Bush Administration as part of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, but it didn’t kick in with funding until former President Obama made it the showcase for collaborative public-private clean power programs aimed at reducing the cost of solar power down to parity with fossil fuels.

The benchmark was $1.00 per Watt by 2020, and this week our friends over at GreenTech Media reported that goal has already been achieved — three years early — in the utility scale solar sector.

That’s a stunning success, considering that utility scale solar was hovering around the $4.00 range as recently as 2011.

To be clear, according to GreenTech analyst Ben Gallagher, the Energy Department’s highly successful Loans Program Office can probably take most of the direct credit for the price drop, and those folks would most likely agree. However, SunShot helped to set the table:

…Gallagher emphasized that the signals, monetary and otherwise, that SunShot sent to investors and entrepreneurs “made the market more efficient.” He said that SunShot helped accelerate this industry and allowed vendors and customers to be able to tolerate a bit more risk.

February 14, 2017 0 comment

Jobs

Why We Install: SolarCity Highlights Solar Jobs From A Veteran’s Point Of View

by Tina Casey November 11, 2015

written by Tina Casey

Veterans and solar jobs make a perfect match, and to underscore that point in honor of Veterans Day, the leading US solar installer SolarCity has produced a video spotlighting a SolarCity Senior Inspections Coordinator and former US Army sniper, Frank Sandoval. In the video, Sandoval makes a great case for the restorative power of work with a purpose, and solar jobs in particular.

The SolarCity YouTube video tells a compelling story, but it’s not the whole story. CleanTechnica got the inside scoop from Sandoval himself in a phone conversation last week, so we’re happy to fill in (many) more details with the following exclusive interview.

Solar Jobs Generate Excitement

In the video, Sandoval describes how solar jobs can be a major turning point in the lives of returning veterans. In our conversation, he recalls another major turning point that occurred just two weeks after he began work:

I’ll never forget this. I was on top of a house in Pasadena and someone stopped, honked their horn and gave us a big thumbs up because they saw solar panels going up on this house, ran to the store, bought us a case of water, and brought it to us.

At that point I knew I wasn’t in your average construction company. I knew that I was going to be a part of something that everybody wanted, and that everybody was embracing.

That’s when I started paying attention to what I was actually doing.

When I started with this company I thought it was just construction. You know, that doing renewable energy is a different type of construction. So, my mentality was construction. But I didn’t actually realize until that moment that I saw that person. It wasn’t even a customer, it was a random person that had seen us, and was excited about it, and at that point I really started telling myself like what am I actually doing?

And then I started doing my own research, and then it kind of blew up from there, as far as my passion.

If you really think about it, nobody gets excited about construction. You look at a house being built, and no-one gets excited that we’re construction workers.

[snip]

That was just one [instance]. If I had a quarter for everyone who said, “We’re happy you guys are here in the neighborhood, we’re excited, we’re going to get it ourselves,” or the neighbor says “we’re excited about this,” I wouldn’t have to work. I would be a rich man.

Climate Change Or Not, Solar Jobs Are Important

In the course of our somewhat casual conversation, Sandoval’s research clearly shows. He makes an essential point about sustainable energy, regardless of the source:

As far as the reason why I’m here, it’s not necessarily for the climate change…I’m a big fisherman and hunter, and I notice a lot of resources are being [mis]used, like water is being used to cool down nuclear power plants. I’m a firm believer that we’re not overfishing, we’re overusing the waters.

With solar, it stops that. It’s a tool that stops the destruction of our environment.

Fossil fuels and things like that really destroy the natural resources that we have. If we can have the same kind of energy without destroying our land, then why not.

Solar Jobs For Solar Veterans

Solar jobs are just one good renewable energy match for veterans. The wind energy industry, for example, also has a great appreciation for the skill set that veterans bring to wind turbine installation and other aspects of that sector.

One difference with solar jobs, though, is that today’s active duty service men and women are beginning to come into civilian life with a hands-on appreciation for the uses of solar energy.

Sandoval returned home several years ago, before the Department of Defense began ramping up its adoption of solar energy, but he explains how he was able to see the advantages of renewable, scavenge-able energy as the first pieces of solar equipment began trickling in:

Before I left, solar was mentioned. It was a different way of using energy, because we were using generators, and these things are loud and obnoxious. You can hear a generator for miles away.

A little bit close to the end, the generators started being put away, and solar panels started being used.

That was the change that I started seeing in the military. And you know, the military is using a lot of solar for everything. Out in the field, you can get power. You don’t need a generator, you don’t need a fuel truck….all that logistics in a combat scenario, it takes a lot of timing.

So if you can put a solar panel, that you don’t have to keeping this thing fueled, to keep giving it power, then that’s a win-win.

Sandoval found SolarCity through a veteran, and before we rang off he made sure to bring this message to more of his fellows:

When you come home, you have a home with SolarCity. You can put down your M4 memories, pick up a drill, pick up a hammer, and start solar memories.

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Image (screenshot): via SolarCity

November 11, 2015 0 comment

Activism Jobs

1,000 New Solar Jobs For US Military Veterans

by Tina Casey November 10, 2015

written by Tina Casey

In advance of Veterans Day, the non-profit solar installer GRID Alternatives has announced a hookup with Wells Fargo to kick off “Troops to Solar,” a three-year program aimed at training more than 1,000 military veterans for jobs in the burgeoning solar industry. The program will also train service men and women who are still on active duty, which will help foster a seamless transition to employment once they return to civilian life.

So…it doesn’t seem like those 35 permanent jobs promised by the Keystone XL oil pipeline project will be missed.

Solar Jobs For Solar Veterans

As the US Department of Defense ramps up its transition to renewable energy, more servicemen and -women are becoming exposed to solar power. That includes both utility scale solar and rooftop solar for housing and other facilities at permanent military bases, solar canopies and solar-enabled microgrids for forward bases, and even portable solar gear to carry into the field.

That familiarity is one factor that could make military service an attractive background for solar employers. However, there are deeper elements at work. Nat Kreamer, a veteran and Board Chairman of the trade organization SEIA (Solar Energy Industry Association), explains:

As an industry, we are completely committed to hiring more veterans. Today, America’s solar energy companies already employ twice as many veterans as the average U.S. business. We hire veterans because they come trained, ready and passionate. The solar industry is filled with people who are motivated to build our economy, improve our environment and strengthen our national security.

[snip]

…Solar, like the military, is not just about the paycheck; it is also about working for something larger than oneself.

Last spring SEIA locked arms with First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden in support of Joining Forces, an initiative aimed at rallying support for US service members and veterans, with a commitment to fill 50,000 solar jobs with veterans by 2020.

That initiative includes on-base solar job training for active duty service members under an Energy Department pilot project that just graduated its first class earlier this year at Camp Pendleton.

GRID Alternatives And Solar Jobs (And Wells Fargo)

With its goal of 1,000 trained solar workers, the new GRID Alternatives Troops to Solar program will take a nice little bite out of the 50,000 mark.

The three-year program, funded by a $750,000 grant from Wells Fargo, will provide placement services leveraging Grid Alternatives’s existing network services as well as solar job training and solar job training.

As part of Troops to Solar, GRID Alternatives is launching a new focus on Native American veterans and “high-need” communities on tribal reservations.

Wells Fargo notes that it is a longtime partner of GRID Alternatives, having invested more than $3.8 million (including the latest grant) since 2007. The funding has gone to GRID Alternatives’ twin goals of installing solar systems for low-income households, including veterans, while also training veterans for solar jobs.

For those of you unfamiliar with GRID Alternatives, here’s a rundown:

GRID Alternatives is America’s largest non-profit solar installer bringing clean energy technology and job training to low-income families and underserved communities through a network of community partners, volunteers, and philanthropic supporters. GRID has installed nearly 6000 rooftop solar systems with a combined installed capacity of over 20MW, saving $155 million in lifetime electricity costs, preventing 450,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and providing over 22,000 people with solar training.

GRID Alternatives works all over the country, with a solar project in Baltimore being one recent example, and this year it also formed a powerful solar jobs training partnership with industry leader SunEdison.

As For Keystone…

Now that the dust has settled over President Obama’s decision to deny a federal permit for construction of the pipeline, at least one conservative observer has hinted that the President did TransCanada — and its investors — an enormous favor by effectively killing the project. It doesn’t make sense in today’s glutty oil world, as described by The New Republic (cited in a longer New York Magazine piece):

Tar sands oil is remarkably expensive to cultivate…Oil is currently trading at less than $50 a barrel and there’s increasing speculation that the stuff will remain cheap for a long time to come. The plunge in oil prices is already affecting tar sands production: Earlier this year, Shell cancelled plans for a major investment in the tar sands. Nor are they the only ones calling off future development. The plunge in oil prices and fall-off in investment means that Keystone simply no longer makes economic sense.

We’re thinking that all of those pipeline jobs “lost” over Keystone will be made up by the renewable energy industry, and then some. SEIA’s commitment alone tops the 42,000 temporary construction jobs promised by TransCanada for building Keystone XL, and the Joining Forces initiative is backed up by other Obama Administration solar jobs initiatives.

However, take a look at one of our favorite news blogs — FuelFix.com — and you’ll notice that those zombie oil and gas pipeline jobs could very well spring to life in eastern states, so stay tuned.

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Photo credit: Portable solar canopy deployed in Djibouti via US Army.

November 10, 2015 0 comment