Jobs in renewable energy have gone up by 5 per cent globally since last year despite the overall decrease in energy jobs and the UAE is expected to have 11,000 employees in the field by 2030, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) said on Wednesday.
During its 11th Council Meeting in Abu Dhabi, the Irena unveiled the Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2016 which showed that the total number of employment positions in sustainable energy has gone up to 8.1 million in comparison to last year’s 7.7 million jobs.
Currently, there are “a little under” 1,000 renewable energy employees in the UAE, an Irena spokesperson told Gulf News.
Irena’s research shows that the field of renewables contains more gender equality than the broader energy sector.
“Renewable energy is a much more effective driver in job equality among the genders than conventional energy, our findings have revealed. This is because more women are attracted to the field,” Irena Director General Adnan Z. Amin said at the meeting.
“Additionally, with high rural urban migration being mainly among men, women are left to be the rural household managers. They make the decisions at home about food, water and energy sources and are left with the biggest impact on their health due to kerosene lamps and wood burning,” he added.
This makes women more willing to make the transition to renewable energy sources.
Dubai’s Distributed Renewable Resources Generation programme which encourages household and building owners to install solar Photo Voltaic (PV) panels on their rooftops to generate electricity will also help create more jobs in the maintenance and installation of panels, Amin said.
However, there continues to be a lack of skills in the renewable energy field.
“There is no silver bullet to solve the exponential demand for skilled professionals in the renewable energy field. Formal training and tertiary education are not enough and we need growth in the type of jobs that use installation of equipment. I therefore believe that vocational training and entrepreneurship are the answers since the latter are a much richer source of experience,” he added.
Report Findings
Apart from the 8.1 million people in renewable energy, 1.3 million people are employed in large hydropower sector
The total number of jobs in renewables worldwide continues to rise in stark contrast with depressed labour markets in the broader energy sector.
Countries with the highest number of renewable energy jobs are China, Brazil, the USA, India, Japan and Germany.
Asia represents a 60 per cent share of in global employment in renewable energy
Solar PV is the highest renewable energy employer with 2.8 million jobs worldwide, an 11 per cent increase over 2014.
Source: Irena Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2016, Gulf News
