By HEIDI ANDERSON //
Source: InnovateLI
It’s all-hands-on-deck to meet New York State’s 2030 climate-justice goals, including zero-emission electric generation and significantly reduced greenhouse-gas emissions.
The challenge is an exciting opportunity for entrepreneurs and global corporations alike to develop all-new clean-energy technologies. But cool tech means nothing if we don’t have the skilled people necessary to install and maintain these systems.
Getting society to a point where we can travel to the big game, receive our packages and binge our favorite shows in climate-controlled comfort – without destroying the environment – requires a combination of established, new and yet-to-be imagined tech, working together at an immense scale.
Those high-tech collaborations will require workers who know what they’re doing. Albany understands this, already investing more than $170 million in clean-economy workforce initiatives. According to the New York State Research and Development Authority, “New York State cannot reach its clean-energy goals without the trained professionals to translate these goals into action.”
Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program has taken this wild ride with many clean-economy business founders. Among them: Unique Electric Solutions, a Holbrook-based electric-vehicle pioneer transforming trucks and buses into clean-running, easy-maintenance, highly reliable fleets.
Their journey has taken UES along some very specialized roads. The company has increased its workforce dramatically in the last couple of years, including the addition of several engineers and highly skilled technicians.
Unique Electric Solutions is also leading the charge to develop a New York State workforce trained in EV battery-cell laser welding. Enter Brooklyn-based Amogy, which has collaborated with UES on several vehicle-integration projects, focused mostly on making hydrogen cells feasible in heavy transportation (think about all those trucks on the LIE or tugboats in the harbor).
Amogy, which has also increased its staff significantly over the last two years, has created a miniaturized ammonia reactor that can create hydrogen onboard a vehicle. This was definitely not a feature of my ’92 Bonneville – and it takes skilled engineers to make it happen.
Looking to keep the spaces where we live, work and play comfortable, bright and sustainable, Oyster Bay-based VoltAir Power is teaching the big guys what their equipment can do when reimagined and re-engineered. VoltAir turns steam-powered multitenant buildings into solar-powered oases that won’t so much as hiccup when brownouts and prolonged blackouts roll through.
To ensure its tech conquers calamity, VoltAir is creating a reliable workforce that includes recent U.S. immigrants and members of less-affluent communities – a nice step toward justice, climate and otherwise.
“With the help of NYSERDA … and our trade ally Bonded Energy Solutions, we have engaged underprivileged community members to become highly skilled heat pump mechanics,” notes Voltair principal Jerritt Gluck.
Offshore wind farms are perhaps the strongest force blowing toward our regional energy future – and the proper management of the turbines, blades and transmission systems that will soon be sending clean energy our way is nothing to breeze over.
So, we have NYSERDA’s Offshore Wind Training Institute, an academic-government partnership managed by Farmingdale State College and SBU. The institute has already received $8 million in state funding in support of its mission to prepare an offshore-wind workforce and ensure the region’s promising future as a national clean-energy hub.
By some estimates, upgrading existing products and infrastructure and otherwise reimagining and executing a newer, better power grid across New York State will require 172,000 new clean-economy jobs by 2030. That includes as many as 30,000 new jobs on Long Island.
We have about seven years to fill this employment gap. Amazing technologies are in the pipeline – let’s continue to make sure we have amazing people to produce and operate them.
Heidi Anderson is the executive director of Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program.