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FOCUS: South Carolina earns the (clean economy) top seed

March Madness recently gripped central South Carolina – and it wasn’t just because the top-seeded Gamecocks advanced to the women’s Final Four for the third consecutive season. Last month, a 100-mile swath of the state cutting straight through the University of South Carolina’s hometown featured four major clean economy announcements, more than any other state tracked by E2.

The projects stretched from Chester County, where Albemarle Corp.’s new $1.3 billion flexible lithium processing facility is expected to create 300 jobs paying an average annual salary of $93,000, down through Orangeburg, where a new $33 million solar PV manufacturing plant could create 200 jobs. In between, Volkswagen’s plant in Blythewood will revive the brawny, utilitarian Scout Motors brand as a new EV offering, while Cirba announced a major lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Columbia, just down Shop Road from USC’s Colonial Life Arena, where the Gamecocks haven’t lost since 2020.

Combined, these four projects are expected to bring more than $3.6 billion in investments and nearly 5,000 jobs to the heart of South Carolina – more than half of every clean economy job that was announced nationwide last month.

The EV and battery projects are particularly notable, and not just because of their size. They are the latest evidence the country’s new Battery Belt is firmly entrenched in the South, where companies are focusing investments to maximize on the landmark Inflation Reduction Act. The Battery Belt is helping connect EV automakers, mining companies, semiconductor manufacturers, recycling centers, charging plants and gigafactories all while taking advantage of the region’s trained workers and convenient transportation links.

“We wanted a location with access to nearby rail and port transportation and the availability of skilled workers,” said Albemarle CEO Kent Masters. “We’re excited to have chosen South Carolina and to be closer to our customers as the supply chain is built out in North America.”

In addition to its announcement in South Carolina in March, Albemarle previously announced it is restarting a mine just across the state line in Kings Mountain, N.C., that’s expected to produce enough lithium to power 750,000 electric vehicles annually. Albemarle is also planning a state-of-the-art lithium battery technology research center in nearby Charlotte.

Other battery and EV projects announced in March in the South came from Georgia, Kentucky and Texas. Of course, all these new EVs rolling off assembly lines can be powered by renewable energy, and there were two big projects in that space announced elsewhere in the country last month – a $1.45 billion, 1,200-megawatt wind project in Oklahoma and a $600 million solar project in Ohio.

Spotlight

CLAUDIA MORSE
Program manager, Form Energy
E2 Emerging Leader
Denver, Colorado

What sparked your interest in clean energy?

I grew up and currently live in Colorado. By the time I was in high school, I had traveled across a lot of the state. I was seeing renewable energy everywhere. There’s the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden; massive wind farms in the plains near Pueblo; and there’s also a lot of community solar in rural areas. Colorado gets 300 days of sunshine each year. The scale of community solar is so easy for young people to grasp, and it certainly captured my imagination. From there I went to college in upstate New York, where I basically designed my major in inorganic chemistry for renewable energy applications. The interest in renewables among my peers and among students is amazing; now, my college has basically formalized a curriculum for what was once my own bespoke major.

You entered the clean energy workforce only recently, in 2019. What have been some initial impressions of the sector?

I’ve already seen amazing growth. I started out as an intern at an EV battery company called Solid Power. It was a great experience: less than 50 people worked there when I started, and about 250 were there when I left in January. It was chaotic and fun. I onboarded my boss and our whole team. I’ve also worked with lots of people who have transitioned from oil and gas. The vocabulary is different, but a lot of the skills required are similar and a lot of the former oil and gas workers I know are now really passionate about clean energy.

What are you working on now?

I’m a program manager for a utility-scale energy storage/iron-air battery company called Form Energy. We are currently pursuing DOE grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will help us decarbonize steel. The BIL is a big focus for us right now because we’re working on utility-scale technologies and we’re pre-commercialization. The IRA has more consumer-facing provisions, but it’s definitely helping raise the whole profile of our industry and it will likely be a big factor for us as time goes on. We recently announced a big contract with Xcel. We’re working with them on iron-air batteries in states with strong renewables policies, like Colorado and Minnesota. We’re also redeveloping an old steel mill in West Virginia. It’s a $760 million iron-air battery project that’s expected to create 750 new full-time jobs.

Opportunities

DOE announces $750 million to advance clean hydrogen technologies 

EERE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office announced availability of $750 million for research, development, and demonstration efforts to dramatically reduce the cost of clean hydrogen. This is the first tranche of implementation of two provisions contained in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Read more.

DOE announces $156 million to drive industrial decarbonization  

EERE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office announced a $156 million funding opportunity to advance high-impact projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. industrial sector. This opportunity includes: decarbonizing industrial heat, low-carbon fuels, cross-sector R&D, decarbonizing chemicals, decarbonizing iron and steel and decarbonizing forest products. Concept papers due April 17. Read more.

DOE announces $14 million to optimize production of affordable biofuels and biochemicals 

DOE announced $14 million in funding to optimize the production of affordable biofuels and biochemicals while reducing carbon emissions. This opportunity will accelerate the growth of the bioeconomy by supporting the development of high-impact technologies that convert domestic biomass and waste resources into affordable biofuels and bioproducts. Concept papers due April 21. Read more.

DOE launches prize to harness the power of ocean waves with new technologies

EERE’s Water Power Technologies Office launched the Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize, which will award up to $2.3 million over three phases to competitors investigating novel technologies for harnessing and converting the power of ocean waves into usable types of energy. First phase submissions due August 25. Read more.

DOE launches prize to strengthen microelectronic supply chains through microbattery design and commercialization

EERE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office launched the Microbattery Design Prize. This two-stage competition will award up to $1.1 million in federal funding, as well as performance and safety testing services with the U.S. National Laboratories, to innovative, small-capacity battery design projects that improve performance, safety and recyclability. Phase 1 applications due by July 1. Read more.

Biden-Harris Administration announces availability of $16 million for pollution prevention in environmental justice communities

The EPA announced the availability of $16 million for two new grant opportunities to support states and Tribes in providing technical assistance to businesses seeking to develop and adopt pollution prevention practices that advance environmental justice in underserved communities. EPA has published two Request for Applications investments made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Read more.

DOE launches second round of Clean Energy Innovator Fellowship Program

DOE launched the second round of the Clean Energy Innovator Fellowship, a workforce development program matching recent graduates and new energy professionals with key energy organizations to help advance clean energy solutions. Applications for host institutions due April 27. Applications should include project scope and describe the institution’s needs. Applications for Innovator Fellows open May 22 and are due June 8. The fellowship is open to recent graduates and mid-career professionals in fields relevant to electricity generation, transmission and distribution. Read more.

FOCUS: New battery projects creating jobs, solutions

It’s a common question when it comes to any discussion about electric vehicles (EVs): What to do with the old batteries?

One huge solution is now on the way.

In February, the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office announced a $2 billion loan to Redwood Materials to build and expand a factory in Nevada that will recycle materials in spent lithium-ion batteries and recover anode and cathode materials that can be used to build new batteries. The funding was made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The massive Nevada project is expected to create approximately 3,400 construction jobs and 1,600 full-time jobs once the plant is up and running. It’s one of the latest major announcements in what’s shaping up to be a very busy year across the country for clean energy.

To help stay on top of major projects like these – as well as smaller ones that could slip through the cracks –E2 is launching Clean Economy Works, a rundown delivered to your inbox near the beginning of each month of clean energy project announcements made possible in part due to the IRA and other recently enacted federal policies.

E2 has long expertise in this space: We’ve been closely tracking clean energy jobs and project announcements for more than a decade, and we know there’s never been a more crucial time to know what’s happening than now.

And what’s happening now is that battery projects are popping up everywhere.

Redwood’s Nevada factory is one of numerous battery-related projects announced in February that stem from federal policies, investments and tax credits.

In Michigan, Ford Motor Co. announced plans for a $2.5 billion electric vehicle battery factory that will create an estimated 2,500 jobs. In Wisconsin, WEC Energy Group announced plans in February for a $200 million long-duration energy storage facility in Milwaukee.

These projects are making America more competitive on the global marketplace – something that’s been desperately missing in some sectors. Currently, Asian countries led by China, Korea and Japan account for about 92 percent of the global market share for EV batteries. And of the 304 gigafactories being developed prior to IRA passing, just 23 were in North America.

Last month was a big step forward, but America will need many more as countries everywhere accelerate their own transition timetables. Millions of jobs and trillions in investments are up for grabs in the coming decade.

Want to stay on top of these announcements? Know someone who does? Please forward this to them and/or drop us a note at [email protected].

Quotable

“We can’t control the wind. We can’t control the sun. We know it’s going to be there most of the time. But when it’s not, we need to make sure that we can keep the lights on. And batteries are so great to continue and expand that clean energy.”

– Brendan Conway, WEC Energy Group

“This investment will continue to bring the supply chain of electric vehicle batteries home to Michigan and make sure that production lines aren’t stalled by global shocks or shipping delays. We’re going to make electric vehicles top to bottom right here in the great state of Michigan.”

– Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D)

“It doesn’t pollute; it is the cheapest energy source. The technology we use is American-made.”

– Dominika Sink, director of development, Energix

“As America’s most diverse industrial manufacturer of steel products, we will be able to efficiently supply this new plant, helping to ensure that our nation’s critical energy and digital infrastructure is built with the cleanest, most sustainable steel in the world.”

– Leon Topalian, CEO, Nucor Corp.

“As we work to ensure our state is the e-mobility capital of the nation, projects like this will continue to choose the No. 1 state for business and benefit communities in just about every zip code of Georgia.”

– Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R)

“Hyundai’s new EV facility is drawing an experienced and dedicated supplier network to the [Savannah] region, adding to [Georgia’s] industry expertise and shaping a larger skilled workforce.”

– Pat Wilson, Commissioner, Georgia Dept. of Economic Development

Opportunities

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Funding opportunities you can apply for today

“… [T]here is billions more in funding available today through competitive programs. … This document highlights funding opportunities that communities can apply for today, along with a calendar for funding opportunities across 2023.” Read more

EPA announces initial program design of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund

“… [O]utlin[es] key parameters of the grant competitions that will ultimately award nearly $27 billion to leverage private capital for clean energy and clean air investments across the country.” Read more

Biden-Harris Administration announces historic investments to support America’s energy and industrial communities

“… [S]everal major programs to accelerate domestic clean energy manufacturing and ensure traditionally underserved communities benefit from clean energy technologies.” Read more

Floating Offshore Wind Shot

“… [A]n initiative to help usher in a clean energy future by driving U.S. leadership in floating offshore wind design, development, and manufacturing. … [S]eeks to reduce the cost of floating offshore wind energy by at least 70 percent, to $45 per megawatt-hour by 2035 for deep sites far from shore.” Read more

DOE announces $23 million to fund onsite energy Technical Assistance Partnerships to drive industrial decarbonization

“… [A] $23 million funding opportunity that will establish a regional network of TAPs to help industrial facilities and other large energy users increase the adoption of onsite energy technologies.” Read more

DOE’s American-Made Challenges: Perovskite Startup Prize

“… [A] two-stage, $3 million prize competition designed to accelerate the development and manufacturing of perovskite solar cells by moving world-class research out of the lab and into new U.S. companies. … The final cycle of the Countdown Contest opened in November and will close on March 23.” Read more

Funding Notice: Enhanced Geothermal Systems Pilot Demonstrations

“… [U]p to $74 million to support EGS pilot demonstration projects called for in President Biden’s landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The legislation authorizes DOE to support up to seven competitively selected pilot projects…” (Hurry! Intent letters due March 8) Read more

Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grants

“… [D]esigned to provide grants to small- and medium-sized manufacturers to enable them to build new or retrofit existing manufacturing and industrial facilities to produce or recycle advanced energy products in communities where coal mines or coal power plants have closed.” Read more

American-Made Net Load Forecasting Prize

“… designed to increase adoption of the state-of-the-art in net load forecasting. … [O]pen to forecasting industry organizations that cater to utilities, system operators, and power plant owners, as well as academic teams with machine learning capabilities that are interested in forecasting. … This prize offers up to $600,000 in cash prizes, with three anticipated winners and three anticipated runners-up.” Read more

Summary:

As the Biden administration steps up efforts to expand offshore wind resources, this report finds that development of floating offshore wind in the waters off of Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay in California could create and support nearly 175,000 jobs, add $45 billion to the state’s economy, and produce 4.6 GW of wind energy.

California and federal lawmakers have an opportunity to hasten development—and scale the deployment—of this valuable new technology by enacting appropriate policies now. This is especially urgent on the heels of President Joe Biden signing into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. This bill includes full-value tax incentives for the manufacturing and deployment of technologies like offshore wind in the U.S. The IRA also includes billions of dollars for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help scale up technologies like floating offshore wind.

Offshore wind will diversify California’s renewable energy supply. This is critical to a stable electric grid and, crucially, can help the state achieve its long-term clean energy and climate ambitions in a least-cost manner. At the same time, floating offshore wind can create tens of thousands of new jobs for Californians, benefit underserved communities, and generate billions of dollars’ worth of wages, investments, economic benefits and tax revenues at the state, local and federal levels.

Policy Matters

California has been a global climate leader by passing policies that have created the market structures necessary to drive innovation, build the state’s clean energy economy and reduce carbon emissions. To maximize the economic benefits of harnessing the state’s offshore wind resources—especially in light of the major federal clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act—state and federal governments must advance policies that will drive a sustainable, resilient offshore wind industry in California. Specifically, this includes:

// Development of a strategic plan by the end of 2023 that formalizes targets; identifies suitable sea space, programs and funding; advances economic and workforce development and in-state manufacturing opportunities; optimizes transmission planning and permitting; identifies potential impacts on ocean uses and the environment, as well as strategies for addressing those potential impacts; and helps de-risk projects early on in order to provide greater certainty for the industry.

// Ensuring that AB 525 requires the CEC to develop a permitting road-map that describes timeframes and milestones for a permitting process for offshore wind energy facilities and associated electricity and transmission infrastructure off the coast of California.

// The State of California must investigate the need for—and, if warranted, approve construction of—a subsea transmission cable from the Los Angeles Basin to Diablo Canyon. This could resolve current regional transmission constraints, reduce dependency on dirty natural gas peaker plants, and minimize threats of grid-induced wildfire, while providing transmission capacity to connect Southern California with potential future offshore wind development.

// State officials must leverage funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act dedicated for grid modernization to upgrade the grid for offshore wind energy integration.

// Congress must invest more in grid modernization including passing a grid modernization tax credit that is essential to the development of offshore wind and the deployment of utility scale clean energy generally.

// The CEC, in partnership with the Ocean Protection Council and BOEM, must make continued investments in environmental planning and mapping for offshore wind development, primarily through the funding and support of the Offshore Wind Data Basin.

// The State should develop and fund an institute—under the purview of the California Coastal Commission—dedicated to the collecting and public sharing of data related to the monitoring and mitigation of ocean ecosystem impacts.

// BOEM must incorporate ocean ecosystem impact monitoring and mitigation stipulations in its lease agreements.

About this Report

The research team estimated local economic impacts for the Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay offshore wind projects using NREL’s modeling tool Jobs and Economic Development Impact (JEDI). JEDI is an input-output modeling tool used to generate outputs for employment, Gross Regional Product (GRP) and earnings for the construction and operations of a particular offshore wind project. The model illustrates the interdependent relationships between the different sectors of a region’s economy, to produce employment figures that vary according to the modeled project’s energy output and local content. The offshore wind activities modeled for the two locations are used as inputs into the model to estimate the multiplier effect on business, household, and government expenditures and industry employment. JEDI estimates these effects based on facility size, energy output, year of construction and the built-in economic multipliers specific to the project location. The economic outputs outlined in this report include:

// Jobs created from the construction of offshore wind facilities with 1.8 GW of capacity in Morro Bay and 1.2 GW in Humboldt Bay by 2030, a total of 3 GW in capacity across both sites.

// Jobs created from the construction of 4.2 GW of additional capacity in Morro Bay and 2.8 GW in Humboldt Bay between 2030 and 2040, to reach a total of 10 GW of offshore wind capacity across both sites.

// Annual number of jobs created for the operation of the initial 3 GW installed by 2030.

// Annual number of jobs created for the operation of 10 GW installed by 2040.

// Employment split by industry for Construction and Operations phases.

// Labor income resulting from jobs created by offshore wind projects.

// Additional GRP for Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay because of economic activity from offshore wind projects.

// Local, state, and federal tax revenue for Phases 1 and 2.

Summary:

Billion Dollar Losses, Trillion Dollar Threats: The Cost of Climate Change reviews the escalating toll of billion-dollar disasters over the last forty years and provides insight into how these disasters—from hurricanes and flooding to wildfires—are compounded by other extreme weather events, such as record-breaking drought, heat waves, and rainfall.

The trends identified in the report are concerning for America’s economy. Every state in the country has been impacted and faces risks from rapidly escalating  weather and climate disaster damages, with a third of all losses since 1980 occurring in the last five years. From 2017-2021, America experienced its four most expensive wildfires, two of its three most expensive hurricanes, and its most expensive winter storm with economic losses from all disasters totaling $765 billion.

Billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the form of hurricanes, severe storms, drought, flooding, wildfires, winter storms, and freezing have led to $2.2 trillion in losses since 1980 (see Figure 1) (NOAA, 2022). Across the United States, climate change is exacerbating extreme weather events and severely damaging infrastructure, buildings, roads, and cropland. Annual losses from billion-dollar disasters during the last five years—totalling $765 billion in losses and more than 4,500 deaths from 2017 to 2021—were nearly eight times higher than in the 1980s (NOAA, 2022). While billion-dollar disasters are responsible for an estimated 80 percent of total disaster-related losses, the combination of smaller disasters, heat waves, and ongoing business disruptions that are not captured mean the overall economic turmoil is even greater than this analysis details.

Climate change is not the sole driver of natural disasters, but it contributes to their frequency and severity. The world has warmed nearly 1.1 ˚C since 1880 (NASA, 2022), and warming is likely to exceed 1.5 ˚C in the near term, even with significant efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions (Pörtner, 2022). Each year from 2001 through 2021 were among the 22 hottest years on record (NASA, 2022), and record-breaking temperatures led to a new high of 130 ˚F in Death Valley in 2021.1 These extreme weather events have widespread impacts: a recent analysis from the Washington Post estimated that in 2021 alone, a federal disaster emergency was declared in the home county of more than 40 percent of Americans (Kaplan et al., 2022).

The frequency of climate-related disasters are rising, too. Between 2017 and 2021, the United States experienced its four most-expensive wildfires, two of its three most expensive hurricanes, and its most expensive winter storm (NOAA, 2022). The percentage of state’s total historic weather and climate disaster losses that occurred in the last 5 years is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 1 // Billion-dollar disasters across the U.S. are growing in number and severity

(data source: NOAA, 2022).

Figure 3 // Percentage of state’s total historic losses from weather and climate disasters in last 5 years (total losses shown in text)

(data source: NOAA, 2022).

Figure 2 // Billion-dollar climate- and weather-related disasters accounted for 80 percent of disaster-related losses, totaling $2.2 trillion from 1980-2021 (shown in $billions below).

(data source: NOAA, 2022).

Summary:

Clean energy and clean transportation jobs grew by more than 5 percent in 2021, with electric vehicle manufacturing jobs leading the way and renewable energy regaining most of the jobs lost in the COVID-19 economic downturn.

More than 3.2 million Americans were employed in renewable energy, energy efficiency, storage and grid modernization and clean fuels at the end of 2021, according to an E2 analysis of U.S. Department of Energy jobs data.

Approximately 156,000 jobs were added across all clean energy and clean vehicle subsectors in 2021—more than half of all jobs added to the total energy sector. Clean energy and clean transportation now employs more than 40 percent of all energy workers in America. Two years after the COVID-19 economic downturn wiped out more than 600,000 clean energy jobs, nearly 75 percent of those jobs were regained.

• 3.2 million Americans now work in clean energy, up 5 percent from a year earlier.
• Every clean energy subsector, from renewables and energy efficiency to electric vehicles and grid modernization, grew last year. Conversely, fossil fuel jobs fell 4 percent.
• While clean jobs grew along with most of the rest of the economy in 2021, they are still well below their pre-COVID peak, in part because of lingering uncertainty around federal policy.
• California, Texas and New York continue to lead the U.S. in total clean energy jobs. Following (in order) were Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
• New Mexico saw the biggest percentage growth in clean energy jobs last year after it passed some of the most promising clean energy policies in the country. But other states – led by Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana and Idaho – are also benefiting. Clean energy investments included in the Inflation Reduction Act would drive more job growth in those states and others.
• Clean vehicles were the big story in 2022. Jobs building electric vehicles grew by a dramatic 26 percent. Many Republican-led states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Texas and Tennessee, benefited greatly from expansions of EV and other clean transportation manufacturers, and also would benefit from electric vehicle tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Small businesses, the backbone of America’s economy, continue to employ the majority of the clean energy workforce. About 90 percent of all clean energy jobs were at companies that employed fewer than 100 workers.

Despite the strong job growth in 2021, uncertainty around federal policy cast a pall over the industry and job growth at the beginning of 2022. New clean energy project installations declined by 55 percent in the second quarter of 2022 alone, according to the American Clean Power Association, putting future job growth at risk.

However, with promising climate and clean energy investments and tax credits moving again in Congress in the summer, and the Biden administration stepping up its efforts to expand clean energy and cut carbon pollution, the second half of 2022 was looking brighter for continued strong growth in clean energy jobs.

2022 Clean Energy Employment Toplines

Summary:

Driven by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis, Colorado experienced its first decline in clean energy jobs in 2020 since E2 began tracking the industry with this methodology in 2017. Colorado’s clean energy economy employed more than 58,000 workers at the end of 2020, down from 62,400 the year before, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data and the findings of a national survey of more than 35,000 businesses across the U.S. economy.

By May of last year, more than 7,500 clean energy workers in Colorado had lost their jobs since the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading widely, according to monthly analysis of unemployment data by E2 and partners.2 Since the sector’s losses peaked at the end of May 2020, jobs grew back by 6 percent. In fact, by the end of 2020 more than about 40 percent of the clean energy jobs lost between March and May had been regained, leaving the sector down about 7 percent (about 4,200 jobs) since COVID-19.

Thanks to smart state climate policy leadership, Colorado’s clean energy economy has proven to be a core part of the state’s economy—representing more than 2 percent of overall state employment. It has been resilient and robust in the face of crushing economy-wide pressures.

• Colorado’s Clean Vehicles sector, made up of Hybrid Electric Vehicles, PlugIn Hybrid Vehicles, Electric Vehicles, Natural Gas Vehicles, and Hydrogen & Fuel Cell, grew almost 6 percent over the previous year, as automakers increasingly shift to cleaner and more efficient electric cars, trucks, and buses. With smart policies, Colorado can be a center for innovation and high-tech manufacturing in this sector.
• The most significant sector decline was in the Energy Efficiency sector, where the pandemic curtailed in-person engagement with customers.
• The total clean energy generation sector ended the year with a 3 percent loss. Wind and solar gained jobs, while geothermal, bioenergy/combined heat & power and low-impact hydro took the hit in job losses.

Colorado Clean Energy Employment, 2020