Authorization
New analysis by the Global Wind Energy Council (“GWEC”) shows that 3.3 million new wind power jobs can be created globally over the next five years thanks to major industry expansion. This figure includes direct jobs in both onshore and offshore wind, and covers the entire value chain of the sector: project planning and development; manufacturing; installation; operation and maintenance (O&M); and decommissioning.
With 751 GW of wind power capacity already installed, the wind industry has generated nearly 1.2 million jobs globally to date according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The world’s leading wind energy countries are home to hundreds of thousands of direct jobs in the wind industry. As of 2020, there were approximately 550,000 wind energy workers in China, 260,00 in Brazil, 115,000 in the US and 63,000 in India, according to a global survey by GWEC Market Intelligence.
GWEC Market Intelligence forecasts that an additional 470 GW of new onshore and offshore wind capacity will be installed around the world between 2021-2025. Based on existing job creation calculations, this surge in new capacity can generate 3.3 million sustainable and long-term jobs over the course of 25-year project lifetimes. Many of these jobs will be locally based, such as for the construction and O&M phase of projects. The majority of these jobs will be created in high growth wind markets including China, US, India, Germany, UK, Brazil, France, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, and Taiwan.
Its worth noting that according to IRENA’s research, the job requirement for onshore wind
is 5.24 jobs per MW over the 25-year lifetime of a typical 50-MW onshore wind project. The job requirement is 17.29 person-years per MW over the 25-year lifetime of a typical 500-MW offshore wind project.
More interesting that a 2017 article in the journal Economic Modelling determined that US$1 million in spending on renewables generated 7.49 fulltime equivalent (FTE) jobs – three times more than the 2.66 FTE jobs generated by the same among of spending on fossil fuels. That means a “brown-to-green” shift in US$1 million in spending results in added value creation of 5 jobs.
Full story: https://gwec.net/wind-can-power-3-3-million-new-jobs-worldwide-over-next-five-years/
Home