How Vacations in Florida Lead to Solar Jobs in New York

With a long history of biggest and bests, New York rarely watches emerging trends from the sidelines.  The Empire State traditionally tries to one-up its neighbors, ensuring its position on the world stage remains untouched.

And yet, over the past several years, New York has largely ignored the countless benefits of what solar energy can do for a flagging economy.  Even as Wall Street continues to hemorrhage jobs and upstate manufacturers increasingly outsource production capacity overseas.

The solar industry has shown remarkable growth over the past few years.  In fact, the industry has grown 10 times faster than the national average, employing an estimated 100,000 solar professionals across the country.

Economic Growth & Solar Jobs – Inseparable Bedfellows

New York needn’t look at national trends to fully appreciate the huge opportunity it’s passing up.  Powerful examples exist much closer to home.

With comparable financial woes and similar amounts of sunshine, New Jersey has installed over 400 MW of solar capacity – 100 in the last half of 2011 alone.  Compare this to New York’s 64 MW. 

As a result, New Jersey has been able to create thousands of green jobs and protect itself from volatile energy prices – crucial ingredients for boosting its local economy.

New York is starting to take note.

Governor Andrew Cuomo and his supporters are considering an ambitious plan to install 5,000 MW of renewable energy capacity over the next 15 years – enough to power the equivalent of 500,000 homes and generate $20 billion in revenues. 

Experts believe that for every $1 million spent on a project of this size, as many as 14 new green jobs would emerge.  Not even Wall Street in its heyday could yield returns like that.

Solar Training in Florida – Solar Jobs in New York

So how do you train an army of solar professionals as quickly as possible?

You outsource.

Unfortunately, New York’s solar training infrastructure is not sufficient for the growth it hopes to achieve – at least not now.  This, of course, will change as the state imports best practices and replicates programs from other solar markets.

In the meantime, an increasing number of New Yorkers (and residents throughout the northeast) have set their sights on Florida – the “Sunshine State.”  With year-round access to sunny skies, schools like US Solar Institute provide the ideal environment for solar training.

Florida is a relatively mature solar market with years of experience in PV training, installation, and design.  That you can temporarily escape the cold of the northeast by enrolling in a weeklong course is merely icing on the cake.