From Guest Blogger Richard Miller: How to Start a Career in Renewable Energy

In this economy, nothing seems settled anymore. If you are even the slightest bit unhappy in your current profession, or you haven’t yet settled on one yet, then never fear: there are options available to you. Set about putting your passion to work and start a career in renewable energy.

Defining the Renewable Energy Industry

Renewable energy is a wildly diverse field, with little agreement on how to define its boundaries and parameters. There is a subtle difference between “green” or “sustainable” industry and “renewable energy,” for example. The former two tend to include efficiency-increasing activities like the retrofitting and weatherization of old buildings, while the latter is defined more narrowly as the actual production of energy through renewable or sustainable means, like wind and solar power.

Common Renewable Energy Career Paths

Ironically, given that sustainability has been back in vogue for only a decade or so, the massive hydroelectric dams constructed during the mid-20th century in the southern and western U.S. remain the country’s biggest producers of renewable energy. The fastest production growth, by contrast, is occurring in biofuels and in wind and solar generation facilities. As such, popular renewable-energy careers these days include wind turbine maintenance and high-tech manufacturing work, done by transmission, bearing, and turbine technicians. If you are looking for high-skill work, the wind and solar industry need plenty of panel and turbine array designers, environmental specialists, and civil engineers to handle infrastructure issues.

Useful Majors

If you have a particular career in mind, it may be helpful to tailor your major accordingly. Civil engineers, for example, need a civil engineering degree whether they’re working for an oil company or a wind-energy provider. If you’re merely looking to transition into the renewable energy industry, however, skills that served you in your previous career should transfer well. As the industry expands, it will require more marketing and business majors to handle the non-technical side of the business, meaning that an MBA could serve you very well in this field.

Where to Look

Starting a career in renewable energy doesn’t require you to shop your resume among wind turbine manufacturers or biofuel plants only. With plenty of traditional firms going green these days, it’s all about meeting the needs of a rapidly-changing world: if your skills enable you to solve a particular efficiency issue or reduce your employer’s energy-related expenditures, you will quickly establish yourself in your new career.

Now that you have decided to change careers, the hard part is over. You will want to approach your renewable-energy job search from the perspective of a seasoned entrepreneur. Unlike in more established industries, potential employers in this dynamic field will reward you for a demonstrated willingness to take risks and think outside the box. With the renewable energy industry looking poised for rapid growth in the coming years, your decision to get in now may prove prescient.

Richard Miller blogs about managing renewable energy businesses. If you are interested in starting your own renewable energy business, you might consider applying for an MBA degree at http://onlinemba.neu.edu/ or http://www.brown.edu.