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DOE OSTI2022

Energy I-Corps Annual Report 2022

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions is pleased to provide an update on the Energy I-Corps program. Now in its eighth year, Energy I-Corps addresses critical gaps in workforce development for our National Lab researchers. It provides meaningful real-world opportunities for the application of commercialization and entrepreneurial skills to DOE technologies. As of November 2022, 191 teams from 12 National Labs have participated in Energy I-Corps over the course of 15 cohorts and the pilot. Since its inception, Energy I-Corps participants have learned from more than 180 industry mentors and conducted over 13,600 discovery interviews with companies like: EPRI, Shell, Ford, World Bank, Breakthrough Energy, John Deere, Siemens Gamesa, Chevron, Eaton, Samsung, Lowes, Johns Manville, LEGO, U.S. Army, Trane, Tesla, GM, Dow Chemical, 3M, Whirlpool, GE, Home Depot, and Amazon. Over 20 teams have launched new businesses based on their Energy I-Corps technology. Post Energy I-Corps, technologies have attracted over $140M in post-program funding and executed over 75 licenses.

cohort↗
NASA NTRS2009

Early Career Hire Rapid Training and Development Program: Status Report

The aging of the industrialized workforce, particularly in the aerospace industry, has resulted in a very large generation gap in the workforce. The disproportionate size of Baby Boomers, increasing longevity and declining birth rates has made this phenomenon a reality that no organization can ignore. It is now critical that aerospace organizations prepare themselves for this watershed transformation in the workforce and take the initiative to prepare the incoming workforce with the skills and knowledge necessary to stay at the forefront. Last year the Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched a pioneering training program, known as Phaeton, to provide the knowledge, practice, experience, mentoring opportunities, and project life cycle exposure to our incoming generation of engineers. After 14 months of operation, now is the time to discuss the preliminary results of this new program.

Riley, Betsy N.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing Smart Building Technology Modules to Enhance Workforce Preparedness: A Case for AI-Driven Academic and Professional Education

Smart building technologies are resources that improve building energy efficiency and resilience, reduce carbon emissions, and provide load flexibility to the grid. However, in both academic curricula and building professionals’ continuing education, there is a lack of systematic instruction on methods to integrate multiple energy systems including distributed energy resources (DER), smart building technologies, AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools and key concepts, components, and controls, including “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. In today’s dynamic workforce, this major gap in smart building technology education prevents stakeholders from being able to attract talent with an understanding and preparation to adopt smart building technologies in building design and operations. A federally funded project included a partnership between Slipstream and Texas A&M University (TAMU) to develop a semester-long smart building curriculum for engineering college students with the ability to adapt the contents for workforce development of professionals in building services. The final product consists of 16 training videos adapted for building professionals and the public. The educational content and training materials cover the benefits of building energy systems, the latest sensor technologies and IoT devices, all with a focus on smart building technologies. The key drivers are on topics related to smart building controls (i.e., energy management information systems), smart building control platforms, cybersecurity, grid-interactive-efficient buildings (GEBs), smart building control methods, and occupant-centric control. Although not explicitly included the technologies nod to the need for AI driven technologies to prepare engineers and industry professionals to be future ready. This paper describes the project approach, provides outlines of the training materials, and identifies lessons learned in creating the content for this course. The authors suggest ways to scale the instruction of smart building concepts to empower the workforce to accelerate the adoption of smart building technologies and AI-based teaching and learning in higher education and building sector.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Oakland University Cybersecurity Center (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

This report summarizes the outcomes of Award DE-CR0000023, “Oakland University Cybersecurity Center,” a 31-month project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). The project addressed cybersecurity risks facing small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) transitioning to Industry 4.0. The project integrated customer discovery, applied research, and cybersecurity training development. A total of 51 cybersecurity assessments identified significant gaps in baseline practices, incident response, and workforce capability. Research efforts produced a scalable mitigation framework tailored to SMM environments, and workforce analysis identified persistent talent gaps. Eight cybersecurity training modules were developed and deployed via Oakland University’s Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) platform. All objectives were completed, with 98.93% federal budget utilization and cost share exceeding requirements. The project establishes a scalable model for strengthening cybersecurity resilience and workforce capacity across U.S. manufacturing supply chains.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Summary of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center's Workforce Needs Assessment for the City of Lawrence

In July 2023, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) published an employment report titled “Powering the Future: A Massachusetts Clean Energy Workforce Needs Assessment.” This report was intended to support the State in meeting its 2030 decarbonization goals by identifying both existing workforce and training resources as well as gaps and barriers that need to be addressed in order to scale the State’s workforce to meet future demand. The following is a summary of the content that is relevant to Lawrence, MA. This was completed as part of the US Department of Energy’s Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) Pilot supporting the Lawrence Stakeholders Coalition (LSC) led by Browning the Green Space in partnership with Groundwork Lawrence, All In Energy, and the City of Lawrence.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Best Practices for Equitable Solar Workforce Development

The Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA) was selected to serve as a lead organization for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technology Office’s Equitable Solar Communities of Practice initiative. This project, facilitated through a partnership with ENERGYWERX, aimed to develop strategies to support the expansion of equitable benefits in solar adoption across the U.S. Specifically, the MREA was chosen to lead the solar workforce development community of practice, focusing on scaling the U.S. solar workforce, to meet growing industry demands and ensure that these opportunities are accessible and beneficial to all communities. For the purpose of this initiative, we define the solar workforce in line with the National Solar Jobs Census, which defines a solar worker as someone who spends a majority of their time on solar-related work. This also includes workers who spend a plurality of their time on solar tasks. It’s important to note that manufacturing jobs were not included in this research, as the focus is primarily on solar installation, development, and related roles. To achieve the goals of the Equitable Solar Communities of Practice initiative, the MREA leveraged existing resources and engaged a diverse core team and group of stakeholders including industry professionals, educators, policymakers, and community leaders. The MREA began with a literature review and gap analysis to identify existing best practices and gaps in the solar workforce. This was followed by a community convening to gather insights from a wide range of stakeholders. The findings informed the best practices and pathways to scale the benefits of solar workforce development, focusing on training programs, workforce services, apprenticeship, and justice, inclusion, and sustainability. This report outlines the background, methodology, findings, and conclusions drawn from the landscape and gap analysis, providing valuable insights into workforce needs and training program capacities across the U.S. The outcomes of this research are presented in this report and contain recommendations for optimizing workforce development and training funding to support the equitable growth of the solar industry, ensuring that the transition to solar energy is inclusive and beneficial for all communities.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Defining Wind Energy Experience

Since 2015, the U.S. wind installed capacity has grown from 73 to over 120 gigawatts, creating jobs across many sectors and educational levels. The growth of the wind workforce will need to continue to meet the goal of 20% wind by 2030, as well as the Biden administration's goals to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 2030, reach 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035, and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050. Despite the needed and anticipated growth, there are challenges to meeting this demand. Research has consistently shown that it has been a challenge finding qualified applicants for open wind industry jobs. Between 2012 and 2018, the difficulty of finding qualified applicants increased from 62% to 68% according to industry respondents. In 2017, educational institutions and training programs reported that 67% of their students did not enter the wind energy industry. Research conducted in 2020 showed that 83% of interested workers had some or great difficulty finding job opportunities. In exploring reasons for this gap, the researchers found that challenges were primarily influenced by education, experience, and geography. This difficulty for wind industry employers, educational institutions, and the potential workforce is known as the "wind energy workforce gap." This report further investigates the experience aspect of this gap.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Building the Efficiency Workforce: Preprint

Demand for high-performance homes and buildings is growing due to their marketability, environmental benefits, and increasing affordability. Growth for energy efficient technologies and building upgrades has driven expansion across many traditional industries including construction trades (which added almost 21,000 jobs) and professional services (which added 35,000 employees) in 2018, according to the 2019 U.S. Energy Employment Report (USEER). As buildings become more automated, digitized and interconnected, the workforce that supports the design, build, operations and maintenance of these buildings must evolve. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) has engaged NREL to provide a framework upon which BTO can develop their next generation workforce development strategy. The strategy will be designed to increase quantity of workers with the skills to adequately design, install, maintain and operate high- performance buildings across all building sectors (residential, commercial, industrial). This paper will summarize past BTO workforce development efforts, identify current skills gaps and hiring challenges, and present anticipated future workforce needs based on new technologies currently being developed by labs and industry. Through a literature review and a series of industry and academic workshops, NREL will present a framework that includes multiple options to best prepare the next generation workforce.

buildings↗
DOE OSTI2023

US Department of Energy Better Plants Program’s Approach to Manufacturing Workforce Development

Multiple studies suggest that by 2030, millions of jobs may go unfilled because of a significant skills gap between the current manufacturing workforce and the workforce needed to support the shift toward advanced and sustainable manufacturing. According to US manufacturers, finding the right talent is more difficult now than in previous years. Developing a well-trained workforce will play a critical role in transforming the manufacturing sector into a net-zero contributor of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To help reduce energy, water, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions as well as build a strong, sustainable manufacturing workforce, the US Department of Energy created the voluntary Better Plants program in 2011. This study discusses the program’s various workforce development activities, including in-plant trainings, virtual in-plant trainings, and in-person bootcamps. The target audiences, training objectives, and topics designed to upskill workers for a low-carbon manufacturing future are described. Feedback that was collected (e.g., new training topics, certifications, hands-on activities) while working with more than 270 US manufacturers for the past 12 years on workforce development are discussed. Finally, some strategies are proposed to address the feedback.

Guo, Wei↗
DOE OSTI2022

Clean Energy Education and Training Resources and Opportunities in New York's Southern Tier Region

New York's Southern Tier Region is experiencing high growth and investment in the clean energy sector and is anticipating more jobs to come in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and manufacturing in the coming years. The Network for a Sustainable Tomorrow (NEST) is a nonprofit network of programs working to develop a regional backbone system for education and training programs as well as curricula to support the workforce needed for the region's growing industries to succeed. Through its participation in the US Department of Energy's Better Buildings Workforce Accelerator, NEST requested technical assistance in conducting a landscape and needs assessment of the region's existing clean energy education and workforce development assets. This report supports NEST's efforts by providing a baseline of clean energy employment data, an inventory and gap analysis of the education and workforce development assets currently available and serving the Southern Tier Region, and case studies of innovative and successful regional clean energy education and workforce coalitions from around the county.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Accelerating Ocean-Based Renewable Energy Educational Opportunities to Achieve a Clean Energy Future

The United Nations has named 2021–2030 the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development with goals to 'strengthen the international cooperation needed to develop the scientific research and innovative technologies that can connect ocean science with the needs of society' (IOC 2019 The science we need for the ocean we want: the United Nations decade of ocean science for sustainable development (2021–2030) (Paris) p 24). Important actions that have been identified in support of sustainable development goals include capacity-building, training, and education. This includes educational opportunities for ocean-based renewable energy development in support of a healthy planet and ocean. Offshore wind is experiencing rapid development globally and, while the U.S. offshore wind market is still nascent, it is on the brink of exponential growth based on large cost reductions driven largely by European development and technology advances. Growth is also expected in wave and tidal energy with significant opportunities identified for various distributed markets through the Powering the Blue Economy™ initiative, with longer-term implications for expansion at the utility scale (LiVecchi et al 2019 Powering the blue economy; exploring opportunities for marine renewable energy in maritime markets p 207). In order to expedite progress and maximize benefits to the national, state, and local economies, these development actions will require a broad, diverse, and appropriately trained workforce. The ocean-based renewable energy workforce needs engineers and scientists to develop cost-effective technologies, as well as trade and maritime workers to eventually deploy the technologies at scale. In the United States, educational institutions, state governments, and private developers are taking action to understand job skills and capability requirements and to develop educational and training programs to meet offshore workforce needs; most are focused on offshore wind power, with gaining interest in marine energy. This article explores the workforce requirements of the growing ocean-based renewable energy industry and the current state of education and training programs to meet those requirements in order to identify gaps and make recommendations for further workforce development activities and initiatives. An international view needs to be adopted that incorporates the education and skill needs of early-stage marine energy technologies and evolving offshore wind technologies together with more market-ready offshore renewable energy markets. By accelerating educational development opportunities in ocean-based renewable energy, these growing blue economy markets can deliver significant economic and social benefits.

50 EE - Wind and Water Power Program - Water (EE-4↗
DOE OSTI2023

An Updated Review of the Solar PV Installation Workforce Literature

In order to develop a well-trained, equitable, and inclusive workforce with high quality jobs, the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) identified a need for analytical context around different PV project characteristics and labor aspects, and how they might impact workforce wellbeing and PV industry growth. To determine the most valuable novel analytical contributions, this work reviews existing literature on solar workforce topics to identify what areas have been studied previously and where gaps remain. Focus areas included the following topics: (1) metrics for solar workforce, deployment, costs, and associated studies capturing aspects such as demographics and regional distribution, (2) solar workforce wellbeing, including employee contracting mechanisms, compensation, occupational safety and health, and community impacts, (3) national and state policies most relevant to the U.S. solar workforce, and (4) ongoing efforts to expand solar workforce participation, including local staffing dynamics, challenges, and relevant strategies.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Workforce Readiness Index: A Local and Regional Assessment Tool for Energy Sector Preparedness

Building up a workforce that is properly trained and adequately sized is essential to ensuring that the deployment of energy generation sources in the United States meets future energy demand. Workforce development to support supply chain or large infrastructure investments typically occurs at a local level. However, there is a critical gap in understanding where and to what extent regional workforces are equipped to meet the needs of an energy industry. The Workforce Readiness Index ("the index") was developed to assess and compare energy sector workforce readiness across the United States at the county level to provide granular information to various stakeholders such as industry members, state decision makers, and training program developers. Workforce readiness is defined as the ability to recruit from the general labor market, transition workers with comparable skill sets, and train a workforce using scalable or existing training programs near a specific location. Therefore, the index evaluates readiness levels based on the likelihood that a county possesses the workforce development infrastructure needed to support the occupations required by an energy-related industry or sector. Furthermore, the index offers a standardized yet flexible approach that captures regional variations and highlights local strengths and challenges.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2019

Workforce for the Future Development of Space Access Vehicles

The development of advanced vehicles that will travel between planetary surfaces with atmospheres and space requires the availability of experimental and computational capabilities that accomplish the research leading to new technologies and the development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) of new flight systems. The United States is at risk of not having the required RDT&E workforce – qualified and in sufficient numbers – in place and ready to meet the future market’s commercial and defense needs. Systemic challenges include uncertain Federal budgets that limit and interrupt government research and development, the projectized nature of new space access systems that drive boom/bust cycles, an aging aerospace workforce (compounded by a mid-age demographic gap), limited to declining investment in sustaining and advancing experimental and computational tools infrastructure, lack of standards for sharing (and leveraging) data, dramatically changing technologies, changing social norms, and potentially large increases in commercial market needs. Flight systems have mission-based trajectories to and from space and designers must ensure risk is properly assessed across the entire trajectory. Thus, physics questions must be answered at each stage of flight, which requires a suite of experimental and computational tools. The RDT&E workforce utilizing these tools include subject matter experts from the producers, interested in acquiring data and information on the product, and from the capabilities being utilized, interested in addressing the product customer’s needs (providing robust data collection techniques, data quality, timeliness – available when needed, efficient with cost management, and teaming on data analysis). This requires a range of skills – in addition to aerospace, other engineers, and software developers, a highly trained and certified craft and technician workforce is critical to future success. This paper will present a human resources construct that addresses the system of needs for people – including, but more than just technical skills and an application of that construct in the hypersonic Test and Evaluation (T&E) community. This is part of a larger AIAA effort to document challenges and associated best practices for the aerospace RDT&E workforce.

Steven C Dunn↗
DOE OSTI2026

Prime Time for Model-Predictive Control? Assessing the Technical and Market Readiness of Advanced Controls in Buildings

Despite three decades of extensive research and field testing that have consistently validated the benefits of Model Predictive Control (MPC) in building applications, the technology has seen limited market adoption. This paper evaluates the readiness of MPC for widespread deployment, showcases recent demonstrations and field tests across diverse building types, including residential, small commercial, large commercial, and campus settings. Our results demonstrate that MPC can optimize system operations to achieve load shifting, minimize curtailment of on-site generation, and reduce energy costs by up to 80 %, while maintaining or improving occupant comfort. We also show that MPC can effectively control large assets, such as MW-sized thermal storage systems, and respond to dynamic pricing signals. However, achieving scale remains difficult due to labor-intensive workflows, reliance on a “PhD-in-the-loop” for MPC design and maintenance, susceptibility to fragile data infrastructure, and persistent workforce education and acceptance barriers. To bridge this gap, we outline a transition from bespoke, labor intensive prototypes toward streamlined, segment-targeted deployment strategies that leverage model templates, semantic tools, and generative AI. By automating control configuration and reducing engineering effort, these recommendations provide a pathway for transforming successful research demonstrations into scalable, market ready solutions for MPC-based controls.

Pritoni, Marco↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Developing Soft Skill in the Geosciences: NASA DEVELOP’s Approach to Strengthening Soft Skills in the Future Geospatial Workforce

Part of NASA’s Applied Sciences, the DEVELOP Program bridges the gap between NASA Earth Science and potential users through rapid feasibility studies that apply Earth observations to environmental decision making needs. The program conducts 50-60 studies a year that engage participants – students, recent graduates, early career individuals, and transitioning career professionals – in autonomous teamwork with an emphasis on professional development and communication. The experience offers participants a robust opportunity to build their teaming skills (facilitated through programmatic personality assessments and discussions), interpersonal communication, and critical thinking skills which are central to project work in the DEVELOP model. The program also offers leadership opportunities where participants lead their peers within a supportive environment. This presentation will introduce the DEVELOP model for soft skill development, lessons learned, and highlight testimonials of past participants.

Amanda Clayton↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Intern Professional Development Center: A Model for Improving Student Engagement Within Industry - 20006

Many innovations and technical improvements have been made over the last half-century regarding our understanding of nuclear materials, with some of the brightest minds in the world collectively working towards a cleaner, brighter, healthier future. However, there is a demographical oddity with the enormous technical workforce that helped shape this new world: they are aging, collectively. Known as the 'silver tsunami,' mass retirements are in the near future for many technical industries, something that the industrial community is not entirely prepared to accommodate. There is an urgent need for a tech-savvy generation to replace the baby boomers, and there must be an uninterrupted hand-off from one generation to the next of institutional knowledge and best practices. Further, it is not enough to simply replace every retiring engineer with a younger one in a 'cold hand-off' - this information transfer takes time. Many educational communities, such as those in the Tri-Cities, Washington, are rising to the challenge, with STEM-focused programs, introducing students to technical concepts and potential career opportunities at an early age. However, while individually, academic institutions search for internships and industry has open positions for interested students, no single clearinghouse exists in the Mid-Columbia region to match talent with opportunities, regardless of the sending or receiving organizations. To fill this void, AYB Drafting (AYB) has established a career development and personal growth center, the Intern Professional Development Center (IPDC). The IPDC, located in Richland, Washington, addresses the problem of what has been referred to as the 'Graying of America,' as it bridges the gap between education and career for the up and coming workforce, creating valuable efficiencies for the young workforce and the industry alike. The operating principles and details of the initial IPDC launch are discussed in the following text, as well as the apparent success and overwhelming positive feedback received in just the first year of operation. (authors)

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Resources, Training, and Education Under the Heliostat Consortium: Industry Gap Analysis and Building a Resource Database

Concentrating solar power is not a widely deployed or known technology area, and the heliostat workforce community in the United States is currently small, with knowledge and expertise not widely available. The resource, training, and education (RTE) topic within the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) was established to address this. RTE encompasses resources, practices, and programs to ensure that (1) newcomers to the heliostat development community have an adequate knowledge base and training to conduct R&D efforts, (2) outsiders to the field are provided with resources and opportunities to join the workforce, and (3) the workforce community is a productive, healthy, and fulfilling environment for all workers. In the first year of the project, a roadmap study was conducted, in which the major gaps in RTE were identified by consulting experts in the industry, with the top gap being the lack of public accessibility to concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) knowledge. Here, to address this, the HelioCon team has been developing a centralized web-based resource database, containing a reference library, educational videos, lists of components suppliers and software/metrology tools, a power tower plant database, and information on existing standards/guidelines.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗