Economic and Workforce Analyst
NREL’s 305-acre Flatirons Campus is the nation’s premier wind energy, water power, and grid integration research facility. Nestled south of Boulder, Colorado, and north of NREL’s main South Table Mountain campus, Flatirons sits adjacent to the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge and countless acres of open space and parks with stunning views of the Flatirons rock formations.
From day one at NREL, you’ll connect with coworkers driven by the same mission to save the planet. By joining an organization that values a supportive, inclusive, and flexible work environment, you’ll have the opportunity to engage through our eight employee resource groups, numerous employee-driven clubs, and learning and professional development classes.
NREL’s National Wind Technology Center located at our Flatirons Campus between Golden and Boulder, CO has an immediate opening for an early career researcher to support projects related to wind energy workforce, economic, and community impact analysis for local, state, and national economic development. The successful candidate will work with an interdisciplinary team of experienced NREL researchers with a focus on informing stakeholders and reducing deployment barriers for land-based and offshore wind energy technologies. This position will support a variety of customers including the US Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. The successful candidate will also work collaboratively with other National Laboratories and industry partners; prior experience in data collection, analysis, and stakeholder engagement is desired.
More specifically, the successful candidate will support several projects including forecasting the workforce needs across multiple sectors of the U.S. wind industry, mapping occupational and skill requirements, evaluating the education and training requirements, assessing workforce gaps and opportunities and providing recommendations on workforce development, estimating economic impacts from land-based and offshore wind energy deployment, understanding the economic impact of renewable energy deployment in communities, identifying the challenges and opportunities associated with wind energy economic development in communities, and employing qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect economic data from federal, state, and local stakeholders.
Typical tasks may include:
- Conduct research at the community, state, and national level with a focus on energy labor markets and trends.
- Collect data for economic impact analysis and conduct quantitative modeling to inform decision making.
- Advise on research methods to further workforce and economic impact analysis capabilities, such as econometric modeling or workforce forecasting models.
- Support convening stakeholders to further workforce and economic development initiatives.
- Contribute to and prepare reports, presentations, and group communications for internal and external stakeholders.