[V]ermont’s booming solar energy industry took a hit last year, shedding 232 of its jobs, or about 13 percent, according to the trade group Renewable Energy Vermont.
Solar industry jobs were down about 4 percent nationwide, a dip attributed to fears about the Trump administration imposing new tariffs on imported solar panels. The administration announced last month a 30 percent tariff, set to decrease to 15 percent during the coming years.
“Nationally, the solar trades saw a 4 percent slowdown which experts attribute to, among a variety of factors, general uncertainty caused [by] the Trump administration’s solar tariff, which first started to rattle the national market for panels early last summer,” said a statement from Renewable Energy Vermont. “Vermont’s job loss is over three times the national average, at 13%, indicating that something more than national politics is affecting the sector.”
That something, renewable advocates say, is a set of changes in 2016 to rules governing the state’s net metering program. That program has allowed homeowners and other owners of small solar installations to send to the utility grid excess electricity when their solar-electric system produces more power than they can use.
“More than 1,500 families are supported by a full-time Vermont solar job,” Olivia Campbell Andersen, executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, said in a statement. “These local, small businesses are helping build stronger communities now. Given plenty of volatility out of Washington, we need to make sure Vermont’s policies keep us on track towards our climate and clean energy commitments.”
Legislation passed in 2014, implemented in rules that took effect in 2016, reduced slightly the rates utilities are required to pay for power from customers who have installed solar-electric systems and are sending power back to the grid.
The result of that and other rules changes was that “Vermont saw its first-ever decline in customer solar installations,” Renewable Energy Vermont said. “Community solar” projects, in which customers with unsuitable home sites chip in to support solar installations elsewhere, saw the biggest decline, the industry group said.
President Donald Trump approved the new tariffs on imported solar panels on Jan. 22. The move was the latest in a series of actions — including withdrawing from the Paris climate accords and rolling back regulations on coal-fired power plants — seen as unfavorable by renewable energy advocates.
Riley Allen, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, which regulates energy industries, said the 2017 dip in solar jobs in Vermont needs to be seen in the context of an industry that has been booming in recent years.
Data from the Solar Foundation, a national industry group, found the 250,271 workers in the U.S. solar industry in 2017 marked a 3.8 percent decline from the previous year. At the same time, the group said, “the long-term trend continues to show significant growth. The solar workforce increased by 168 percent in the past seven years, from about 93,000 jobs in 2010 to more than 250,000 jobs in 2017.
Allen, also citing the Solar Foundation, said that despite its larger percentage drop in solar jobs, Vermont actually moved up in solar jobs per capita, from No. 3 in the country in 2016 to No. 1 in 2017.
“It’s a very robust period of growth, never mind the decline from 2016 to ‘17,” Allen said.
