Clean energy is booming in Colorado, creating demand for a rural workforce

A strong gale was tearing through the eastern plains on a brisk April morning, slamming doors, snatching hats, and of course, keeping the area's many wind turbines very active.

In other words, it was a fine morning to be a student at the Wind Energy Technology program at Northeastern Junior College, in Sterling, one of the few degree programs in the country for aspiring wind turbine technicians.

The Wind Tech lab is housed in a nondescript building with metal siding on the north side of town. Inside, protected from the incessant gusts, nineteen-year-old Trent Shaver was in his wiring class, building a simple practice circuit that controls some lights and buzzers in a metal cabinet.

“We’re just trying to get an understanding how it works before we start building more complicated circuits,” he said, preparing a length of copper wire to complete the circuit. Wiring and electrical work is an important component of the wind technician training.

Meanwhile his classmate Benjamin Sussman was focused on another important part of the curriculum: safety protocols. Preparing to practice the ladder climb, he retrieved a hardhat from his locker and buckled into a body harness.

“You kind of want it tight enough that you’re not going to slip around in it,” Sussman said, demonstrating his safety training, “But you don’t want it too tight.”

All the safety gear suddenly seemed excessive as Sussman approached his target: a bright yellow ladder of notably modest height – maybe 20 feet tall - mounted to the outside wall.

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Trent Shaver, a student at Northeastern Junior College, builds a practice circuit in the wind tech lab. Electrical wiring is an important component of wind turbine technician training. Other parts of the curriculum include mechanical and hydraulics systems, computer programming and safety protocols.

Of course, the yellow ladder was just a simulation, designed to give students a chance to practice the more physical requirements of wind technician work. When he starts working in the field, Sussman must be prepared to climb way higher: turbines are typically mounted upwards of 300 feet into the air. At heights like those, the harness becomes a literal lifeline, and knowing how to use one properly could mean the difference between life and death.

Clearly, the job is incompatible with a fear of heights - not a problem for Sussman.

“I’ve always been interested in climbing something super tall,” he said. “I climbed a lot of trees as a kid.”

But Sussman isn’t just indulging his love of heights here. He’s making a smart career move. Demand for wind technicians is growing rapidly. In fact, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, wind turbine technician is now the fastest growing occupation in the country.

And, a recent report from E2, a national nonpartisan advocacy group focusing on environment and the economy, found that clean energy jobs are exploding in Colorado, and nowhere faster than on the Eastern Plains, where nearly all of Colorado’s wind energy is being developed. In that context, the NJC Wind Tech program is playing a vital role in building a local, in-demand clean energy workforce.

Kevin Schroeder has been trying to manage that workforce demand from within the industry, as senior vice president for renewable operations at Invenergy, a global clean energy producer with wind farms in Eastern Colorado and across the country.

“As the industry has grown, there’s certainly been an increased need in qualified individuals to do the maintenance work, to do the repair work at these facilities,” Schroeder said.

Last year, his company installed over 550 Megawatts (MW) of wind capacity across the country and doubled their national wind technician workforce to 400. In 2024, they expect to increase wind installations by about 50% and plan to hire another 250 wind technicians.

“Each quarter we have more projects,” Schroeder said. “We continually have job postings out there looking for qualified individuals. So, it has been difficult to keep up.”

The jobs aren’t just plentiful; they also pay well. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the median pay for wind turbine technicians at just under $62,000 a year.

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A view inside the Wind Tech lab at Northeastern Junior College on April 8, 2024. The lab is crowded with equipment designed to train students to work in renewable energy careers. A building expansion is currently in the works and will nearly double the area of the lab.

Amy Caillouette graduated from the NJC wind tech program last year and just landed one of those well-paying jobs with an offshore wind developer operating off the coast of Rhode Island and New York.

“I couldn't be happier with the offer that I have right now,” said Caillouette, who recently left a career in the nonprofit world to follow her lifelong dream of working on windmills.

She reported that the new job will roughly double her previous salary, and she’s thrilled about her future prospects there.

“I'm now getting to do something that I really love outside with my hands every day that's changing the world and I'm being substantially compensated for it,” she said.

What’s more, the sustained demand for knowledgeable wind technicians means job security is built in.

“I have seen and experienced that once you're in wind, you can be in it for as long as you'd like,” Caillouette said. “There's lots of growth opportunity.”

The hiring spree for wind turbine technicians in Colorado and beyond is the direct result of the clean energy transition, the process of retiring coal and other fossil fuel energy sources in favor of renewable energy alternatives like wind and solar.

In Colorado, that transition is being fast-tracked.

“Historically, Colorado relied on coal generation as the largest source of our electricity,” said Dominique Gomez, deputy director of the Colorado Energy Office. “Currently, we will retire every remaining coal plant in the state by the end of this decade.”

Beyond sunsetting coal power plants, the state is aiming for a 100% renewable energy grid by 2040.

“That is just an amazing, huge transition in such a short period of time,” Gomez said.

As renewable energy swoops in to replace all that coal power, Colorado’s capacity to produce it will more than double by the end of the decade.

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A group of wind turbines generate renewable energy behind a farm in Peetz, Colo. on March 14, 2024. Wind farms have become part of the scenery in many parts of eastern Colorado.

Wind energy is leading the way. Today, about 75% of Colorado’s nearly 7,000 MW of renewable energy capacity comes from wind produced on the Eastern Plains, and by 2030 the state will add an additional 4,250 MW of wind energy capacity.

Naturally, all those new turbines will require technicians with special expertise to keep the blades spinning.

In Colorado those spinning blades are almost entirely located on the Eastern Plains - a pattern likely to continue as that state’s wind development expands.

“Basically 100% of wind is in rural areas,” said Jason Winter, an instructor in the NJC Renewable Energy Department. “That’s just geographically how it has to be.”

That means all those wind turbine technician jobs will be Eastern Plains jobs. That’s certainly the case at Invenergy, where 9 in 10 full-time wind technician positions in Colorado are local to the Eastern Plains.

Winter, who grew up on the Eastern Plains himself, sees a lot of potential in the wind industry for local communities and the regional economy.

“If [local kids] don’t have a family farm to work on they really don’t have a lot of opportunity,” Winter said, adding that many young people have little choice but to move away from eastern Colorado after high school. “Now when we have, all of a sudden, really good paying jobs, that makes sense to stay here. I think that’s huge for the community.”

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Jason Winter, an instructor in Northeastern Junior College's renewable energy program inside a simulation wind turbine outside the wind tech lab in Sterling, Colo. on April 8, 2024. The equipment helps Winter train up the next generation of wind technicians on the Eastern Plains.

And as the local renewable energy employment opportunities get bigger, NJC’s renewable energy program is growing, too. A building expansion will more than double the area of the lab next year. And the program just received a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new certificate program for solar energy technicians starting next fall.

Meanwhile, the job prospects for Winter's current students are strong even before they graduate. Benjamin Sussman secured an internship with Invenergy. He'll spend the summer break working on turbines north of Sterling.

“I think this is honestly one of the greatest mix of things that I could do,” Sussman said. “It involves climbing things, involves working with my hands. There's an electrical component, a mechanical component, and it's mostly environmentally friendly.”

Rae Solomon

Rural and Small Communities Reporter at KUNC. That means my focus is building relationships and telling stories from under-covered pockets of Colorado.