Clean Energy Job Report Remarks at Boston Green Academy

Thank you, Secretary Bartlett, for that kind introduction, and thank you to Headmaster Matt Holzer and his colleagues for hosting us here at Boston Green Academy today.

We have some really great news to share this morning. I am proud to announce that today for the third year in a row, job growth in our clean energy sector is up by double digits this past year, by 10.5 percent. That means that this industry has grown 47 percent over the past four years, to comprise some 5800 firms employing nearly 89,000 people here in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Clean tech is no niche industry today in Massachusetts -- it's a $10 billion sector of our economy and it's growing.

This didn't happen by accident.

Almost eight years ago, we in Massachusetts took a fresh look at our energy reality. We believed that if we harnessed Massachusetts-grown energy sources, reduced our energy consumption and better protected our environment, we could strengthen both the environment and our economy.

And we knew it would take working together -- government, the private sector, ordinary citizens, and the many, many advocates for our environment -- to change behavior and develop technologies and a burgeoning industry around clean and alternative energy.

And what a difference that has made.

Installed solar capacity in Massachusetts was 3 megawatts when we took office. It's over 600 megawatts today, and will more than triple by 2020.

Wind capacity in Massachusetts has grown from 3 megawatts to more than 103 megawatts today.

We've tripled the energy we're saving from efficiency initiatives and today lead the Nation in energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Working with other states through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, we have lowered carbon emissions throughout the region and demonstrated that a market based cap-and-trade approach actually works.

In total, $1.6 billion of investments in energy efficiency have yielded some $6 billion of economic and environmental benefits for the people of our Commonwealth. We plan to invest another $2.2 billion by 2015, and produce another $9 billion in benefits. Importantly, this common sense approach -- treating energy efficiency as our first fuel -- will save energy equal to the demand of over 560,000 Massachusetts homes and the emissions of over 400,000 cars.

Between 2000 and 2012, the electricity generated in our commonwealth from coal in New England dropped from 18 percent to 3 percent; electricity generated from oil is down from 22 percent to less than 1 percent. We've reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 16 percent below 1990 levels, and are well on our way to our goal of reducing emissions by fully 25 percent by the year 2020.

Now, conventional thinking often says that clean energy is an economic drag. That's false and we've proven it. The Massachusetts economy is not just unharmed but stronger because of our investments. And much of that growth, as today's announcement confirms, is coming from the clean energy sector.

This growth isn't just happening here in Greater Boston as important as that is. For the second year in a row, the South Coast is the fastest-growing clean energy cluster in the Commonwealth, with a 22 percent increase last year. That can only improve with the announcement this month that Cape Wind will use the Marine Commerce Terminal in New Bedford for the staging, assembly and construction of the Nation's first offshore wind farm.

And we are not slowing down, or letting up. Due in part to our access to financial and intellectual capital, and our unprecedented investments in clean tech, we expect to add another 11,700 jobs this year. By early next year, I should say by the time somebody does the lone walk I think they call it in early January, the Massachusetts Clean energy industry is expected to exceed 100,000 workers.

Madame Secretary, let me thank you and the whole team for the forward-looking policies that have helped to create the many opportunities for clean tech. Alicia Barton and her whole team at the Clean Energy Center, Greg Bialecki and his team in economic development, and the many other members of this Administration, past and present, which have contributed their very best to getting this right. I am grateful, we are all grateful.

The progress we have made is not because of state government alone. It's because we've worked together. Government, alongside industry and alongside entrepreneurs and our academics. Together, we have made choices, and sometimes taken the calculated risks, to shape our own future. In a sector where, whether we like it or not, there will be winners and losers, we are not waiting for the future to happen to us. We're shaping it.

And so finally for a word for Quay and the students who are assembled here today, for whom we will all be working for soon enough -- by the way, I'm looking for a job: I want you to know that you will inherit this clean energy foundation. And we need you to build on it.

Be the next Tim Healey. Thirteen years ago Tim launched a startup called EnerNOC that developed technology to track and analyze energy use. Today that company is employs hundreds of people in Massachusetts.

Be the next Emily Reichert, the head of Greentown Labs in Somerville that houses more than 50 clean tech companies and organizations.

Be the next Geoff Chapin who left California -- did you hear me? -- California, to come home to Massachusetts to start an energy efficiency and solar service company that now employs over 500 people.

Be the next Mathew Silver who earned degrees in engineering from MIT, one of them in astronomical engineering -- space engineering. I don't know how he could stop there. In 2006, he founded Cambrian Innovation, a company that uses technology to recycle wastewater then use it to generate energy.

Or be the next Alicia Barton or Maeve Bartlett, two of the exceptional leaders in the clean energy industry. Their spirit and commitment to the clean energy mission has helped create jobs and give light to new clean energy innovations.

The folks I have mentioned and many, many others have set a high bar. Now, go be.

Thank you.

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