Bay Area Partnership Spurs Energy and Good Jobs

Experts who keep track of the clean energy sector recognize the San Francisco Bay Area as a center of green-collar job development – some even call it the epicenter.

Among the region’s distinctions is its focus on underserved urban communities. Several of the Bay Area’s environmental justice and green jobs organizations work in concert with each other, expanding their reach beyond San Francisco to cities like Richmond and Oakland.

Two key players in the Bay Area are working together to increase solar energy generation, both locally and throughout the state. Solar Richmond, a nonprofit founded in 2006, focuses on the solar sector’s potential to create jobs and provides green-collar job training for Richmond residents seeking careers in solar energy. Solar Richmond has helped reduce pollution and violence in a city that suffers from both, and the organization is preparing Richmond residents for jobs in solar energy so that they can compete in the new, clean energy economy.

GRID Alternatives, an Oakland-based nonprofit, has worked since 2001 to expand solar energy’s accessibility by providing affordable equipment, installation, and financing to low-income homeowners throughout the state. GRID identifies eligible homeowners for solar installation, purchases the necessary equipment, and designs and installs the solar systems. By leveraging an array of public and private solar energy incentives, GRID is able to significantly reduce the up-front cost of solar installation to homeowners.

Green-Collar Job Training
Their overlapping efforts allow GRID and Solar Richmond to contribute their respective strengths to a shared mission: job creation, energy savings, and a cleaner environment. Though relatively young and still fairly small, both groups are raising their sights and expanding their reach.

Solar Richmond partners with the city of Richmond to teach general job-readiness skills and to train young people for jobs in construction, solar, and energy efficiency retrofits. The program, which is offered several times per year at no charge, is 12 weeks long. Students receive classroom instruction on solar energy; undergo training atop a model house at the group’s facility; and participate in two days of installations on actual Bay Area homes under the supervision of GRID Alternatives.

At these installations, GRID staff – some of them Solar Richmond graduates – oversee the trainees’ work and routinely bring the solar panels and other system parts, which are often donated by companies like Schneider Electric and SunPower.

Solar Richmond trainees get hands-on experience under GRID’s staff electricians and engineers, and GRID is able to pass on solar skills to members of the communities it serves. Projects that GRID undertakes without Solar Richmond rely largely on volunteer labor. While this generates public interest in solar energy, GRID admits that at-risk youth are underrepresented in its volunteer pool. GRID has responded by reaching out to job training organizations and other community groups, and by encouraging clients and their friends and family to participate in installations.

Jobs Available
To date, Solar Richmond has trained approximately 180 people and has a waiting list in the hundreds. The organization has helped roughly 35 of its graduates find short-term apprenticeships and permanent jobs at local solar companies that pay a living wage and are known for providing quality service.

“Our partnership with GRID is ideal because our programs complement each other so nicely,” said Solar Richmond’s Zoey Burrows. “GRID provides the financial structure and tax credit expertise, and provides for a real, hands-on rooftop experience. Our warehouse and training site are great, but there’s only so much you can learn from a mock setting.”

Solar Richmond’s graduates can gain additional work experience through the program’s Solar Bid Evaluation Service. Bay Area residents or building owners who want a solar energy system contact the organization, which coordinates with reputable local solar companies to help clients find the best package for their situation. In return for Solar Richmond’s assistance, the selected company agrees to hire the program’s graduates for the installation.

GRID offers its own 12-week internship for youth seeking training for solar energy jobs. Interns typically arrive with prior solar experience, in many cases acquired through Solar Richmond’s program. Interns help with administration and work at job sites, giving them an extra few months of experience before hitting the job market.

The two organizations’ achievements go beyond jobs. Solar Richmond has convinced the city of Richmond to invest in solar energy through a pilot solar thermal rebate program. It also persuaded the city to eliminate solar installation permit fees for Richmond homeowners and to install solar panels on the roof of City Hall.

Richmond Benefits
Over the past few years, Solar Richmond and GRID have helped Richmond grow its solar energy capacity to 4.87 megawatts, within striking distance of the original goal of five megawatts. And that’s in addition to both organizations’ work in other cities throughout the state.

GRID, for instance, has completed more than 200 residential installations, which it estimates have already prevented more than 10,000 tons of CO2 emissions and will save nearly $3.4 million in residential energy costs.

In December 2008, GRID celebrated its biggest success yet when the state selected it to be the Single-Family Low-Income Program administrator of the California Solar Initiative, the state’s primary solar energy incentive program. This will help GRID dramatically increase its outreach and financial assistance to low-income homeowners, particularly to applicants in designated affordable housing. In some cases, GRID may be able to provide free small solar photovoltaic systems to eligible households.

As part of its new role, GRID is also considering contracting with solar installation companies that agree to hire trainees who have been certified through programs like Solar Richmond. If all goes as planned, GRID’s expansion will allow it to establish more partnerships with local green jobs organizations around the state.

There are plenty of opportunities to link with these Bay Area solar energy trailblazers. The groups already collaborate with such agencies and organizations as the Workforce Investment Board, Contra Costa College and West Contra Costa Adult Education, the Solar Living Institute, Oakland Green Jobs Corps, Habitat for Humanity, the Alliance for West Oakland Development, and many others. Both are also strengthening their connections to organized labor. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, for instance, has partnered with GRID on projects in the East Bay and Los Angeles.

With increased public and federal focus on clean energy and green jobs, from both the public and the federal government, as the recent stimulus package’s bevy of green policies indicate, we should soon be seeing these types of partnerships all over the state – and the nation.

Seph Petta is a researcher and writer in the Apollo Alliance’s office in San Francisco.