Experience has shown that prevailing wage actually accelerates solar development. In California, the predominate use of union labor on utility-scale solar projects has fortified political support from organized labor for legislation and regulatory policy that continues to accelerate in-state solar development.

This post highlights the impacts on the region’s workers of three major components of California climate policy: cap and trade, the Renewables Portfolio Standard, and energy efficiency.

Final Report for UC Berkeley Contract with the Contractor State License Board for contract CSLB-20-01, entitled “Energy Storage Systems Consultant Services”

California’s leadership on climate policy solutions has brought much attention to the quantity of jobs created in the state’s renewable energy industry. Yet the quality of those jobs has largely remained a mystery, and clean energy jobs aren’t automatically good jobs.

This brief estimates the investment needed, and the jobs this investment would generate, to achieve zero net energy (ZNE) in all Municipal, University, School, and Hospital (MUSH) sector buildings in the Southern California Regional Energy Network (SoCalREN) territory.

This brief estimates the jobs created from California’s renewable energy investments from 2003 through 2014, and forecasts job creation from continued development of renewable energy in California between 2015 and 2030 to meet a 50% renewables portfolio standard (RPS).

This report offers a quantitative assessment of the economic impacts of three of California’s major climate programs and policies in the Valley: cap and trade, the renewables portfolio standard, and investor-owned utility (IOU) energy efficiency programs.