Driving Energy Transition

REPORT

Workforce, Skills, and Gender in India's Renewable Energy Sector May 2026 | Energy Transition

03 June, 2026 | Energy Transitions

Nicole Almeida, Akanksha Tyagi, Soham Roy, Deepesh Tourani, Pallavi Girolkar, and Rana Pujari

Suggested citation: Almeida et al., Driving Energy Transition: Workforce, Skills, and Gender in India's Renewable Energy Sector, CEEW - NRDC, 2026.

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Press Release

Authors

CEEW: Nicole Almeida, Akanksha Tyagi, and Soham Roy (former researcher)
NRDC India: Deepesh Tourani, Pallavi Girolkar, and Rana Pujari

Overview

India's energy transition is both a climate imperative and an economic opportunity. In July 2025, India met its NDC target of sourcing 50 per cent of installed power capacity from non-fossil fuels — five years ahead of schedule. As renewable energy (RE) deployment and manufacturing become central to the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, understanding the workforce implications of this transition is critical.

The study has developed full-time equivalent (FTE) coefficients for assessing the employment intensity across the deployment and manufacturing of various RE technologies. The coefficients cover the various business phases, such as business development, pre-construction, construction, operation and maintenance. The FTE coefficient or job-year is a ratio of the time spent by an employee on a particular project or task in a given year to the standard total working hours in that particular year. These FTEs are standardised per megawatt (MW) or as per the standard unit of measurement in the sector. The study also examines trends in the representation of women in the clean energy workforce, skill distribution across skilling levels and new clean energy workforce additions between financial year (FY) 2023 and 2026.

Key Highlights

Deployment in decentralised systems generates more jobs than in large-scale systems. For example, rooftop solar systems generate 44 times more FTE (job-years)/MW than utility-scale solar systems.
In the previous four financial years (FY23 to FY26), approximately 6.5 lakh (657,845) workers have been added to the total workforce in the clean energy sectors of ground-mounted solar, rooftop solar, biomass to power, wind, small hydropower, large hydropower, and under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) scheme. The majority (62 per cent) of the workforce addition was driven by the rooftop solar sector.
Women represent only 11 per cent of the total workforce in the solar and wind deployment and manufacturing sectors. About 62 per cent of the total women in the workforce are employed in non-technological roles such as HR, accounting, and administration.
India meeting its 500 GW non-fossil capacity target and achieving other goals under the National Green Hydrogen Mission is estimated to generate over 44 lakh (4.4 million) FTE jobs.
The research emphasises more institutional mechanisms within key ministries and government institutions to regularly collect data on employment and skilling.

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Nicole Almeida

Programme Associate

[email protected]

“This study developed employment coefficients to estimate workforce and jobs in the renewable energy sector. The evidence is clear. If the energy transition is planned and executed with attention to workforce development and gender inclusion, it has the potential to generate lakhs of sustained jobs and leverage the country’s demographic dividend.”

Executive Summary

India is making significant progress in pursuing and achieving its energy transition goals. The country now ranks third globally in renewable energy installed capacity.1 India also achieved its target of meeting 50 percent of cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil sources in 2025, five years ahead of schedule.2 Clean energy technologies play a critical role in India’s vision of a Viksit Bharat (an economically developed, self-reliant, and prosperous India) by 2047 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2070.

An accurate estimation of clean energy jobs, skill requirements, and gender participation aids in informing skill-building programs, developing measures to ensure a gender and equity-focused energy transition, and helping policymakers develop programs to optimize job creation, among other benefits. To this end, with support from the Government of India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) India and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) conducted a primary survey of companies in 2024-25 across the solar, wind, bioenergy, and hydropower sectors to assess the clean energy workforce advancements in India.

The study has developed full-time equivalent (FTE) coefficients for assessing the workforce intensity across business phases (these phases include business development, pre-construction, construction, operation and maintenance, etc. Details in Table 2). The FTE coefficient or job-year is a ratio of the time spent by an employee on a particular project or task in a given year to the standard total working hours in that particular year. These FTEs are standardized per megawatt (MW) or as per the standard unit of measurement in the sector.i The study also examines trends in representation of women in the clean energy workforce, skill requirements and new clean energy workforce additions between financial year (FY) 2023 and 2026.

Key Findings

The FTEs developed across the clean energy sectors are mentioned in Table ES1. The following are some of the key employment insights from the various sectors:
- Deployment in decentralized systems generates more jobs than large-scale systems. For example, rooftop solar systems generate 44 times more FTE (job-years)/MW than utilityscale solar systems.
- Among the electricity generating sectors, biomass to power has the highest FTE at 164.82 FTE (job-years)/MW with the collection of feedstock phase being the most labor intensive (35 percent of the total FTE). In the case of small hydropower, which has the next highest coefficient of 152.43 FTE (job-years)/MW, the construction and commissioning phase is the most labor intensive (86 percent of the FTE).
- In the previous four financial years (FY23 to FY26), approximately 6.5 lakh (657,845) workers have been added to the total workforce in the clean energy sectors of ground-mounted solar, rooftop solar, biomass to power, wind, small hydropower, large hydropower, and under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) scheme (Figure ES1). The majority (62 percent) of the workforce addition was driven by the rooftop solar sector.

Table ES1: Sector-wise FTE Employment Coefficients

Sector	Coefficient	Unit
Deployment Sectors
Ground-mounted Solar	1.00	FTE (job-years)/MW
Rooftop Solar	44.68ⁱⁱ	FTE (job-years)/MW
Floating Solar	2.21	FTE (job-years)/MW
Wind	0.65	FTE (job-years)/MW
Small Hydropower	152.43	FTE (job-years)/MW
Biomass to Power	164.82	FTE (job-years)/MW
Compressed Biogas (CBG)	9.91	FTE (job-years)/TPD
PM-KUSUM Component A*	1.17	FTE (job-years)/MW
PM-KUSUM Component B**	47.91	FTE (job-years)/MW
PM-KUSUM Component C Grid-connected Pumps (IPS)***	47.32	FTE (job-years)/MW
PM-KUSUM Component C Feeder-level Solarisation (FLS)****	1.17	FTE (job-years)/MW
Large Hydropower*****	0.72	FTE (job-years)/MW

Manufacturing Sectors
Solar Module Manufacturing	1.51	FTE (job-years)/MW
Solar Pumps manufacturing	6.37	FTE (job-years)/MW
Wind Manufacturing	1.44	FTE (job-years)/MW
Pellet Manufacturing	8.04	FTE (job-years)/TPH

Notes:
* Ground-mounted solar FTE (for smaller systems below 2 to 3 MW) used here, as the scheme targets smaller sized systems.
** Rooftop solar FTE for 5-kilowatt (kW) systems, along with solar pumps systems installation FTE, have been used in this case.
*** Rooftop solar FTE for 5 kW systems have been used.
**** Ground-mounted solar FTE (for smaller systems below 2 to 3 MW) used for feeder-level solarisation.
***** FTE for O&M phase only

Source: CEEW-NRDC Analysis, 2026

Source: CEEW-NRDC Analysis, 2026

Women represent only 11 percent of the total workforce in the solar and wind deployment and manufacturing sectors. About 62 percent of the total women in the workforce are employed in non-technological roles such as HR, accounting, and administrative. Meanwhile, approximately 44 percent of the companies in the study sample had at least one woman board member.

Source: CEEW-NRDC Analysis, 2026

Approximately 60 percent of the jobs in clean energy project deployment require highly-skilled or semi-skilled workforce. The figure is higher in the case of manufacturing sectors, with about 80 to 90 percent of the workforce engaged in highly-skilled or semi-skilled jobs.
India meeting its 500 GW non-fossil capacity target and achieving other goals under the National Green Hydrogen Mission is estimated to generate over 44 lakh (4.4 million) FTE jobs.iii Approximately 12.8 lakh (1.28 million) of the total FTE jobs estimated to be generated across the solar, wind, bioenergy, hydropower, and solar pumps sectors in achieving these targets, are expected to be in the operations and maintenance and manufacturing roles—sustained over the lifetime of each project or manufacturing facility.

Source: CEEW-NRDC Analysis, 2026 and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, 2024

Based on this analysis, the report proposes the following recommendations to strengthen evidence-based decision making on jobs and skills, and build a robust clean energy jobs ecosystem:

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy can institutionalize mandatory reporting of renewable energy workforce to collect timely data: By integrating workforce reporting requirements with existing government data collection mechanisms—such as in subsidy disbursement processes, tenders, and other regulatory frameworks administered by MNRE, Solar Energy Corporation of India, and the National Institute of Solar Energy—comprehensive data on workforce trends can be easily collected without additional cost or effort.
Clean energy companies should undertake initiatives towards gender inclusivity to tap into underutilized talent: This can be done by ensuring workplace safety provisions, allowing for flexible work conditions and initiatives to increase women’s participation in technological roles and in leadership positions.
Clean energy companies should create opportunities for employee career advancement, given that an increasing proportion of jobs require higher skills in the solar and wind sectors: Since a growing proportion of jobs in the solar and wind sectors require a highly- or semi-skilled workforce, clean energy companies and training institutes should develop career advancement programs that enable workforce progression from low- to semi-skilled and semi- to high-skilled roles through continuous learning, expert partnerships, and long-term mentorship.

FAQs

What kinds of jobs does the renewable energy sector create?

Clean energy jobs span the entire project lifecycle — from manufacturing components like solar modules and wind turbines, to deploying and installing systems in the field, to operating and maintaining assets over decades. Each phase requires a different mix of skills: construction and installation work is relatively labour-intensive and employs semi-skilled workers; manufacturing increasingly demands precision and technical training; and operations rely on a smaller but steadier workforce. Beyond these, clean energy also generates jobs in areas like logistics, project finance, and community engagement.
Which renewable energy technology creates the most jobs in India?

It depends on whether you measure total jobs or jobs per megawatt. In absolute terms, large-scale solar dominates simply because of deployment volume. But in terms of labour intensity per MW, rooftop solar, solar pumps, and bioenergy are significantly more employment-intensive — making them particularly valuable for rural and distributed employment goals. It is because one needs to deploy more systems for a distributed technology to reach the same capacity. More systems need more people and create more jobs.
What kinds of skills does India's clean energy sector actually need?

The clean energy sector requires a mix of low-skilled, semi-skilled, and highly-skilled workers, with the distribution varying by technology and phase. Manufacturing in solar and wind is particularly skewed towards semi- and highly-skilled workers — for precision assembly, quality control, and systems integration. Deployment phases have a higher share of low- to semi-skilled labour, particularly for civil, electrical, and installation work.
What does "full-time equivalent employment" mean, and why do we need them?

A full-time equivalent (FTE) is a standardised measure that converts variable, part-time, or project-based work into comparable units of one full-time job for one year. Clean energy projects are cyclical — they require intensive labour during construction and much less during operations. Using FTEs, rather than raw headcounts, allows for meaningful comparison of employment intensity across technologies, project sizes, and project phases. This study develops India-specific FTE employment coefficients based on primary survey data from industry — a significant methodological contribution, given that most global studies rely on coefficients derived from other countries.