Workforce agencies plan to train 300 Maine clean energy workers

Maine Public | By Peter McGuire
Published July 15, 2024

A new program from southern Maine workforce development agencies plans to train hundreds of new workers for the clean energy industry.

Green Jobs for ME is managed by the Coastal Counties Workforce Inc. and operated by Goodwill Northern New England. It is funded with a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Goodwill's senior director of workforce services David Wurm said the program will target people who are underrepresented in construction and engineering occupations.

The initiative will offer subsidized training, apprenticeships and degree programs to job seekers and help connect workers to employers, Wurm said.

"Within this kind of renewable energy field, these two pathways of construction and engineering is where we saw a pretty deep vein of both current jobs, but also future jobs," Wurm said.

The groups plan to train more than 300 workers over the five year program. Jobs include everything from entry-level laborers to project managers, Wurm said.

There is a labor crunch in the construction industry nationwide, according to Kelly Flagg, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Maine.

Programs like this can help get workers into in-demand jobs with transferrable skills, Flagg said. Not every worker that comes out of the program will work directly in renewable energy, but they will still be needed for jobs to support the industry, she added.

"A lot of the jobs that we are talking about are not necessarily the ones you would think of as green jobs," Flagg said.

But building a solar farm or a wind power development needs workers who can operate cranes, move earth and do other jobs to move the development ahead, Flagg added.

"We support a number of those different occupations, including those you would think of like electricians and solar installers and those things," she said.

https://www.mainepublic.org/climate/2024-07-15/workforce-agencies-p...

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Comment by Dan McKay on July 18, 2024 at 7:00am

Taxpayer funded jobs bring escalated energy bills, creeping inflation, and lower living standards. So stupid, even a caveman knows better.

Comment by Penny Gray on July 17, 2024 at 2:47pm

Bring shop back into high schools. This would be a great start. Welding, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, useful skills that would land them an instant job upon graduation.

 

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CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

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Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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