11 Million People Work in Renewable Energy Worldwide

According to a report recently released by the International Renewable Energy Agency, almost 11 million people globally work in the renewable energy industry. Around 3.5 million of those employees work for companies engaged in photovoltaics, the conversion of solar power to electricity.

Solar industries have the strongest showing in the statistic, with another 800,000 people employed in solar power directly converted to heating or cooling and 34,000 more in concentrated solar power, an industry building large scale solar power projects that use mirrors and lenses to concentrate solar power from large onto small areas. An example of this powerful technology is the PS10 Solar Power Plant near Seville, Spain.

Since the analysis was first conducted in 2013, the number of employees in the sector has grown from 5.7 million total employees to approximately 11 million employees in 2018. The country hosting the most jobs is China, with just over 4 million employees in its strong photovoltaics and wind power industries. Brazil employs 1.1 million people, mainly in biofuels. Around 1.2 million people in the EU work in the sector, with solid biomass and wind equally strong.