Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

guest column:

Solar jobs benefit Nevada’s Hispanics

Click to enlarge photo

North Las Vegas Councilman Isaac Barron

The Hispanic community in Nevada is looking for solutions — solutions that put people back to work, lower living costs and improve our quality of life. Rooftop solar offers those solutions. Giving Nevadans the choice to generate their own clean solar energy saves families money and creates good jobs.

The Public Utilities Commission has until the end of the year to set long-term rules for Nevada solar. As our families struggle to make ends meet, the last thing we need are regulations that hurt our pocketbooks and wipe out a local job-creating industry.

Hispanics constitute nearly 28 percent of Nevada’s population but earn, on average, 33 percent less than the state’s median household income.

Here in Nevada, rising utility costs are comparable to the amount of a second mortgage — and that hits our community especially hard. Rooftop solar provides homeowners with a way to make their utility bills lower and more predictable, allowing families to use those savings for necessities such as health care, food and education. Furthermore, rooftop solar helps keep electricity costs low for everyone — solar customers and nonsolar customers alike — by reducing demand on the grid and helping NV Energy avoid the costs of building expensive power plants and transmission lines.

And as the solar industry is saving our families money, it’s also creating well-paying local jobs. The Silver State is battling high unemployment — it has the third-highest unemployment rate in the country — and our unemployment rate is 10.8 percent for Hispanics. As our families seek good jobs, our solar industry is a bright spot: the solar industry has created more than 6,000 Nevada jobs, making Nevada first in the nation for solar jobs per capita. The solar industry is hiring Hispanics at a higher rate than the traditional energy and construction industries. And across Nevada, solar jobs grew by 146 percent last year — more than 53 times faster than the state’s average employment rate during the same year. Our solar industry has tremendous potential to create even more good jobs if the Public Utilities Commission adopts rules that give full value to our clean, home-grown solar resource.

I am proud to stand up for solar because solar makes our community, and our state, stronger. Let’s make sure solar continues to be an option for everyone, not just a lucky few. I hope the Public Utilities Commission will do the right thing for Nevada by setting long-term rules that support solar, our 6,000 solar jobs and Nevadans’ right to generate clean energy on their own property.

Isaac Barron is a North Las Vegas city councilman.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy