Bucks County Community College receives $2M for clean energy job training

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Bucks County Community College received $2 million in federal investment to expand manufacturing apprenticeship programs and invest in a clean energy HVAC technician program.

The funding will expand access to the college’s metalwork and industrial maintenance pre-apprenticeship programs, launch a new HVAC technician program and integrate clean energy and energy efficiency education in manufacturing programs.

Students will then work with the college’s existing network of more than 170 small- and medium-sized companies to help them cut costs and reduce carbon emissions by improving energy efficiency. Graduates from the program can expect to earn at least $27 per hour in their first year of work.

The funding is part of the $24 million earmarked by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand the Department of Energy’s existing Industrial Training and Assessment Centers (ITAC). ITAC partners train energy-efficiency workers to help small- and medium-sized businesses reduce their carbon emissions.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said providing clean energy job training brings economic and environmental benefits.

“I’m a firm believer, as someone who’s focused on energy and clean energy for much of my career, you need to have the technology, you need to do the R&D investment, you need to do all of that,” Turk said. “But you have to keep in mind, it’s people who are doing this the researchers who are doing this, the technicians who are doing this, the electricians who are doing this, the entrepreneurs who are doing this, and I think you get such a huge return on investment when you invest in the people.”

According to ITAC, the program has saved an estimated 12.7 million metric tons of annual carbon emissions from small- and medium-sized manufacturers in the last decade. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of 3.1 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles.

Jeremy Avins, program manager for workforce deployment at the DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Supply Chains, said the ITAC network’s mostly free assessments to small- and medium-sized manufacturers identify opportunities to cut annual operating costs by an average of $150,000.

“It’s really quite material for a lot of these businesses, and also through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law program, the program has $400 million in funding to support manufacturers in acting on the recommendations that they get out of the ITAC assessments,” Avins said.

Turk said the investment at Bucks County Community College is one small step in creating more job opportunities in a growing sector.

“I’ve heard story after story of folks, some beginning their career, but some more mid-career as well, that had some trouble finding their way and finding what they wanted to work on,” Turk said. “And they’ve gotten an opportunity to have a job that is only going to have more demand in the future, right? We’re going to need more energy efficiency, we’re going to need more solar, we’re going to need more wind, we’re going to need more clean hydrogen in the future.”