“Clean” Energy Jobs Report Shows Solar Is a Make-Work Program

A new report by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota crows about the number of people employed in the renewable energy sector, but viewed with a different lens, the report actually demonstrates how inefficient solar energy truly is.

The report shows nearly 4,500 people are employed in the solar industry in Minnesota, but it fails to mention what hardworking Minnesota families and businesses receive in terms of electricity from these solar installations.

That’s probably because it is an embarrassingly small amount of electricity.

In fact, solar power accounted for about 728,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity in 2017, which sounds like a lot until you realize that the state produced roughly 60,000,000 MWh of electricity during that year, meaning 4,500 people were employed producing 1.2% of the electricity used in the state.

Viewed in this way, it becomes painfully obvious that solar is a make-work program that makes liberals feel good about themselves, but does very little to generate electricity.

Keep in mind, this growth in solar was not due to the free market. It occurred to meet state mandates requiring 1.5 percent of our electricity come from solar power.