Summary
California’s clean energy workforce added 21,622 new workers in 2023, growing 4.1 percent and adding jobs at a much faster rate than the state’s overall employment, which grew by only 0.2 percent. The state ranked 1st for largest clean energy workforce nationally for 2023, with 544,604 clean energy jobs in total. The bulk of the workforce were in construction and professional services industries. In 2023, there were 7 times more clean energy than fossil fuel jobs in California. Two counties are in the top three list for most clean energy jobs in the nation: Los Angeles (101,437 jobs) and Orange (58,520 jobs), and five California counties are in the top ten.
- RENEWABLE GENERATION: Renewable generation grew 2.6 percent in 2023, bringing California’s renewable generation workforce to 136,591 individuals–the largest in the country. Solar and wind account for the majority of the sector’s workforce with 117,946 jobs and 8,132 jobs respectively.
- ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Energy efficiency is California’s largest clean energy sector with 302,176 workers. The sector grew 2.6 percent in 2023.
- STORAGE AND GRID MODERNIZATION: Jobs in battery, storage, and grid modernization grew 4.1 percent in 2023, making the sector the second fastest growing clean energy sector in the state behind clean vehicles. California’s storage and grid modernization workforce totaled 24,940 in 2023–by far the largest in the nation.
- CLEAN VEHICLES: The clean vehicles sector has the fastest growing workforce in California’s clean energy industry, growing
14.3 percent in 2023 to employ a total of 74,923 workers. The sector grew much faster than the gas/diesel vehicles sector in California, which shrunk by -0.62 percent in 2023. - CLEAN FUELS: California’s clean fuels workforce makes up the smallest clean energy sector in the state with 5,974 total jobs. Despite being the smallest clean energy sector, jobs in clean fuels grew at a rate of 1.6 percent in California.
Previous Reports
Clean Jobs California is the 5th clean energy jobs report for California from E2. For additional insight into E2’s clean energy jobs numbers, including interactive state and county data for all of the U.S., visit cleanjobsamerica.e2.org.
Previous California-specific reports can be accessed in the below links.
Background
This is the fifth Clean Jobs California report produced by E2 based on analysis of the USEER, which was first released by the DOE in 2016. E2 was an original proponent of the DOE producing the USEER and was a partner on the reports produced by the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) and National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) after the Trump administration decided to not produce it in 2017.
For additional insight on clean energy’s economic impact, visit e2.org/reports/ to access E2’s full slate of economic reports on the clean energy sector and related industries,