Paper
Creating Green Job
Employment generation by Gamesa-Renew Power’s 85-Megawatt Wind Project in Jath, Maharashtra
Rajeev Palakshappa, Bhaskar Deol, Nehmat Kaur, Poulami Choudhury, Arunabha Ghosh, Meredith Connolly, Anjali Jaiswal
August 2014 | Sustainable Livelihoods
Suggested Citation: Palakshappa, Rajeev, Bhaskar Deol, Nehmat Kaur, Poulami Choudhury, Arunabha Ghosh, Meredith Connolly, and Anjali Jaiswal. 2014. Creating Green Jobs: Employment Generation by Gamesa Renew Power’s 85-Megawatt Wind Project in Jath, Maharashtra. New Delhi; Council on Energy, Environment and Water and Natural Resources Defense Council.
Overview
This study, in collaboration with the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), captures the wind energy employment scenario in India. It evaluates the jobs created by an 85 megawatt (MW) wind project developed by Gamesa in Jath, Maharashtra. It incorporates four phases of job creation in the solar market - business development, design and pre-construction, construction and commissioning of wind turbines and operations and maintenance. It also highlights key recommendations to increase the potential job creation scenario in India, especially in Jath district.
Skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled employees (FTE) deployed during the project cycle
Source: CEEW and NRDC analysis, August 2014.
Key Findings
- The 85 MW wind power project installed in Jath created a total of 438 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs in the first year of operations.
- The operations & maintenance phase of the project created 102.5 annual FTE jobs post-commissioning over the 20-year lifespan of the project.
- Business development created a total of 10.2 FTE of employment. This stage required highly skilled and semi-skilled personnel for wind resource assessment and micro-siting.
- Activities carried out during the design and pre-construction phase created a total of 108 FTE jobs of employment. All jobs involving semiskilled and unskilled workforce were subcontracted or outsourced.
- Operations & maintenance phase generated approximately 67.5 full-time security jobs for local, semi-skilled employees.
Key Recommendations
- Focus on training workers to fill jobs that will be created in the solar industry, such as those in construction, installation, and maintenance.
- Track and report wind energy jobs numbers to help business and policymakers in formulating better policies and programs and demonstrate the importance of renewable energy to the local economy.
- Maintain openness and transparency in sharing employment data to showcase the employment potential of the sector.
- Maintain continuous interaction with the market players as this allows an accurate and reliable estimation of employment in the Indian wind market.
The study projected that the Indian wind market would employ 46,500 workers by the end of 2015 and could potentially employ 80,000 workers by 2020.
