T&D World covered Virginia AEE's news on jobs growth, quoting Virginia AEE's Harry Godfrey, and AEE members, Larry Cummings at TRANE and Logan Landry of Sigora Solar. See excerpts below and read the entire T&DW story here.
Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), a national business group, recently released a fact sheet showing that Virginia has 101,400 people working in advanced energy. This represents more than those employed by hospitals (98,549), and twice as many as those in real estate (43,181) across the Commonwealth. The United States has a total of 3.5 million working in advanced energy jobs throughout the nation.
“With more than 100,000 workers and a robust 7% increase in jobs expected this year, advanced energy is an exciting growth sector for Virginia’s economy,” says Harry Godfrey, executive director of Virginia Advanced Energy Economy (Virginia AEE). “But this industry is far from meeting its full potential in the Commonwealth, as it is held back by a variety of policy obstacles and uncertainty in the market.”
Key Virginia advanced energy employment details:
- Energy efficiency led advanced energy segments with 78,700 jobs.
- Electricity generation from sources such as solar, nuclear and wind was second with 12,600 jobs.
- Jobs grew 4%, three times Virginia’s overall 1.5% jobs growth rate in 2018.
- Strong 7% jobs growth for 2019 is expected by companies in the Commonwealth.
- Top 5 counties for advanced energy jobs are Fairfax (20,700), Loudon (5,400), Henrico (4,700), Arlington County (4,600), and Virginia Beach City (4,500).
Read the entire T&DW story here.