Green training increases with stimulus funding (Jacksonville)

President Barack Obama’s goal to create about 5 million jobs tied to renewable energy technology and conservation has been lauded, but also criticized as unrealistic.

Local efforts to train and put the new green work force to task have popped up in recent months, but proponents say a plethora of challenges are ahead. The key to create a new industry will be sustained tax incentives and funding for training, industry leaders said.

Through a $2.2 million federal stimulus grant, Solar Energy Initiatives and a division of Florida State College at Jacksonville will train about 390 unemployed workers for solar energy installation and maintenance jobs. Stimulus-funded initiatives will pay for the students’ efforts to upgrade energy conservation in Northeast Florida homes, said J.B. Renninger, Florida Coast Career Tech dean.

“The administration wants to stimulate the solar industry even though the cost of electricity is higher, because the cost of solar will come down while the cost of other [traditional sources] will go up in the next 20 years,” he said.

Ellen Leroy-Reed, Solar Energy Initiatives’ dean of schools, said there is a lack of workers trained and licensed to install solar thermal and solar photovoltaic, or PV, systems. Her company, which builds solar parks nationally, is creating a training facility in South Carolina and plans to do the same in Jacksonville.

Read the full story in the Jacksonville Business Journal.