Photo: High voltage electrical equipment at the University of Pittsburgh’s GRID Institute at the Energy Innovation Center in Pittsburgh’s Hill District on Feb. 10. (Photo by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)

As research and investment flow to the region, Pittsburgh strives to develop a workforce to build the green energy future.

By Quinn Glabicki and Alice Crow
PublicSource

February 24, 2025 -Brandon Grainger stood beneath a towering, 13,800-volt webwork of power lines and transformers constructed inside a laboratory at the Energy Innovation Center in the Hill District, home to the University of Pittsburgh’s GRID Institute. Solar panels layer the sawtooth roof and a prototype wind turbine spins high above the parking lot. Both provide energy to the lab, and a research opportunity for those seeking to understand how to best integrate renewable energy.

As power demands increase from booming tech and AI development, the GRID Institute studies how to efficiently get electricity where it’s needed, and Grainger and other professors prepare students to eventually work in advanced industry.

But concerns persist, and a question remains: Do we have enough labor — from doctoral candidates to electricians — to meet the demands of the future?

“Well, the answer is no,” said Granger, an associate professor of electrical engineering. His graduate students, mostly electrical engineers, are being hired nearly eight months before they graduate, he said, and undergraduates, too, are being scooped up by industry well before they leave campus.

Industrial electrical equipment with interconnected metal structures and cylindrical components in a facility.

Southwestern Pennsylvania has the industrial capacity and hard-working heritage to be a bedrock of green energy manufacturing and development at a time when climate-friendly projects awaiting connection to the grid could go a long way toward addressing energy supply challenges.

Research and investment is already flowing to the region, but as green energy development accelerates, the local stock of legacy labor might not match the demand for workers, potentially posing a serious risk to the sector’s development amid quality control issues and delays. At the same time, local efforts are striving to train and graduate new workers to help meet the need. (Next page)