National Wind Energy Workforce Assessment: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Needs

Technical Report · Tue Jan 16 04:00:00 EST 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2282290· OSTI ID:2282290

McDowell, Brinn ^[1]; Stefek, Jeremy ^[1]; Smith, Elena ^[1]; Pons, Bailey ^[1]; Ahmad, Quaran ^[1]

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1. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

The wind workforce gap is defined as the disconnect between employers having difficulty finding qualified candidates while potential wind energy workers report having difficulty finding jobs and educational institutions having difficulty placing students in industry. For this assessment, a system dynamics model - informed by a survey effort completed in 2022 and other anecdotal research - was created to better understand potential scenarios and actions that could be used to help close the workforce gap. The survey was conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in collaboration with BW Research Partnership, to understand the perspective of wind industry firms, wind educators, current wind energy industry employees, and current renewable energy students on the workforce pathways into the wind industry. The information gathered through the survey effort was used to help develop workforce estimation scenarios, gain insight into why the workforce gap exists, and evaluate areas of opportunity to reduce barriers of entry into the wind energy industry.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Wind Energy Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 2282290
• Report Number(s): NREL/TP--5000-87670; MainId:88445; UUID:121132eb-25d3-4c43-b8e1-a8ac29bf982a; MainAdminId:71559
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
wind
wind workforce
workforce gap