National Wind Energy Workforce Assessment: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Needs

The wind workforce gap is defined as the disconnect between employers having difficulty finding qualified candidates while potential wind energy workers report having difficulty finding jobs and educational institutions having difficulty placing students in industry. For this assessment, a system dynamics model - informed by a survey effort completed in 2022 and other anecdotal research - was created to better understand potential scenarios and actions that could be used to help close the workforce gap. The survey was conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in collaboration with BW Research Partnership, to understand the perspective of wind industry firms, wind educators, current wind energy industry employees, and current renewable energy students on the workforce pathways into the wind industry. The information gathered through the survey effort was used to help develop workforce estimation scenarios, gain insight into why the workforce gap exists, and evaluate areas of opportunity to reduce barriers of entry into the wind energy industry.