California: Solar and Clean Energy Jobs
There are 279,447 workers in the U.S. solar energy industry as of 2023. Below, you’ll find state-specific information on jobs in solar, jobs in other clean energy industries, and state policies that impact solar energy growth.
Unless otherwise noted, solar jobs data come from IREC’s National Solar Jobs Census 2023. Additional data sources are listed below. The complete Solar Jobs Census report is available here.
Notes and Sources
- The National Solar Jobs Census analyzes energy jobs data collected for the U.S. Department of Energy United States Energy & Employment Report 2024.
- Solar jobs include workers who spend 50% or more of their time on solar-related work, also refer to as "majority-time" solar workers. This fact sheet provides a second figure for solar workers who spend 0-100% of their time on solar-related work, known as “Solar Jobs (All)”.
- For all other clean energy industries, workers are assigned a job category based on where they spend the most of their time. For example, if a worker spends 30% of the time on clean storage and 20% of the time on solar, that job is classified as clean storage.
- Cumulative installed solar capacity is from SEIA/Wood Mackenzie, U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2024 (June 6, 2024), https://www.seia.org/us-solar-market-insight.
- Equivalent number of homes powered by solar, % of state's electricity from solar, and number of solar companies is from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
- Community solar status is from Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Community Power Map (accessed September 2024), https://ilsr.org/community-power-map/.
- Community choice aggregation (CCA) status is from Lean Energy US, CCA By State (accessed September 2024), https://www.leanenergyus.org/cca-by-state.
- Third-party ownership status is from DSIRE/NC Clean Energy Technology Center, 3rd Party Solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) (August 2021), https://ncsolarcen-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DSIRE_3rd-Party-PPA_Aug_2021-2.pdf.
- Property assessed clean energy (PACE) status is from PACENation, PACE Programs (accessed September 2024), https://www.pacenation.org/pace-programs/.
- Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is from DSIRE/NC Clean Energy Technology Center, Renewable & Clean Energy Standards (November 2022), https://ncsolarcen-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/RPS-CES-Nov2022.pdf.
- Average retail price of electricity, residential is from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Electricity Data Browser, Average Retail Price of Electricity, 2023, https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/.