If you plan to make a career in the renewable energy sector, you have to know that yes, you can save the environment while making a living today.
More and more young people are interested to study for getting a job in the clean energy sector. This is very beneficial for the planet because these future engineers will work to increase the generation capacity for renewables on the planet, and this will reduce the use of fossil fuels. This article aims to help you get a modern career in the renewable energy sector.
The renewable energy industry has seen an exponential growth in the last decade, which created an opportunity to develop a career in the field much sooner than previously estimated.
What Renewable Energy Jobs Are Available Today For Students?
Renewable energy relies today on a wide portfolio of clean sources of power available on the planet such as: solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass (biofuels), wave, tidal, etc. The range of technical skills required are also diverse, but most of them are related to mechanical, electrical and civil engineering.
If you want to study engineering, but you can’t afford because nobody is helping you, you can always get a student loan, which will help you finish your studies and become an engineer in renewable energy.
You have to understand that renewable energy is not something new or entirely different from other sources of power.
In terms of engineering, renewable energy requires both mechanical and electrical knowledge, in order to use technology that can deal with energy sources that are renewable. For this reason, you don’t need to have a certain degree in renewable energy, because the skills that you will learn in class, such as: mechanical, electrical, electronics, civil engineering, etc. will be very helpful in any future job in the sector.
Even if we talk about designing wind turbines, a task that heavily involves the knowledge of mechanical engineering, getting the wind turbine online requires electrical engineering skills.
The construction of dams or the installation of wind turbines or solar panels in a solar farm requires the knowledge of civil engineering.
How To Get A Job In The Renewable Energy Industry?
When we talk about a wind turbine, there are different job roles in the different phases of its lifecycle. These phases refer to: design and manufacturing, supply chain management, sales and administration, installation and commissioning, operation and maintenance.
If most of these phases require technical skills and knowledge, there are also non technical tasks involved in the lifecycle of a wind turbine.
Compared to non renewable sources of power, such as: coal, natural gas, oil or nuclear power, the number of jobs created in the renewable energy sector per megawatt of installation is more complex.
A report by NREL says that wind farms produce between 0.4 and 1.4 jobs per megawatt of capacity installed during the construction phase, and 0.06 to 0.2 jobs per megawatt in the operation and maintenance phase.
To sum up the technical jobs in the renewable energy industry, we have technical jobs like design engineer, development engineer, systems engineer, installation engineer, commissioning engineer and maintenance engineer.
All these jobs exist in any portfolio of renewable energy courses, even if we talk about wind, solar, hydro, wave, tidal, geothermal, biomass, etc.
With a degree in mechanical, electrical, electronics or civil engineering, you can apply for many of these roles.
If you already worked before in the power sector, many of the skills acquired for the previous job are now transferable in the clean energy sector.
Wind turbines and even solar farms are looking today to move offshore and therefore people involved in these projects must have skills and knowledge in engineering, but also in developing offshore rigs required to build floating platforms for wind turbines or underwater tripod foundations.
What Is The Average Monthly Pay In The Renewable Energy Sector?
Using data from the wind turbine industry, we split the jobs into three categories, and we have ‘tier-1 jobs’ that require a high amount of skills and experience, ‘tier-2 jobs’ that require moderate amount of skills, and ‘tier-3 jobs’ that requires more hand-on skills.
The average salary (per annum) in the tier-1 jobs (requiring a high amount of skills and experience) is around $60,000. The tier-2 jobs can earn between $42,000 and 50,000 per annum, while the tier-3 jobs can earn between $22,000 and $40,000.
There are also graduate and postgraduate programs available for students in the renewable energy industry available at many universities, but when specialized knowledge and skills are required there are specific courses available for those interested.
Non Technical Job Opportunities In The Renewable Energy Sector
Even without a technical background in engineering, there are a few renewable technologies that provide jobs in the sector because they’ve been scaled out, and include: run-of-the river hydropower schemes, wind turbines for farms and even solar farmers for homeowners and businesses.
You can always look for sales jobs in this sector because what is produced must also be sold.
A sales job will require some level of knowledge of technical terms (to know what you’re selling), but will never require the level of knowledge of an engineer.
For these sales jobs, there are always short course available offered by educational institutions and by many other industry based training centers.
You can also become a sustainability practitioner without knowing too much on the technical side. This way you can help different organizations become more environmentally friendly by complying with standards such as the ISO 14000 standard, which is a set of rules and standards created to help companies reduce industrial waste and environmental damage.
Exactly like we have professionals looking after management, health and safety in any company, we also have professionals involved in reducing the carbon footprint of the company.
These professionals are called sustainability consultants.
You have to understand that many organizations are interested to reduce their impact on the environment, and you as a sustainability practitioner or consultant can help them comply with the new rules and standards. This will also help them meet their customer expectations and demands issued by their local government.
If you plan to become a sustainability practitioner or sustainability consultant, there are several courses provided by different educational institutions.
