Increasing Michigan’s renewable energy output to 30 percent by the year 2027 would generate thousands of additional jobs and grow the state economy by billions of dollars. That’s according to a new study commissioned by the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum. It’s an organization made up of business and political leaders who are both politically conservative but support renewable energy. Ed Rivet is the Forum’s Executive Director.
“For us, renewables means Michigan generated. And that means it will stimulate the economy locally," Rivet said. "When we think about coal for example, we have zero coal in Michigan. So we have to import it so that means we export energy dollars. So it is always going to be better for our Michigan economy to generate that electricity here locally, create the jobs here locally, so that helps strengthen our economy in our state.”
According to the study, if big energy companies like Consumers Energy and DTE Energy were committed to a 30% increase of renewable energy over the next decade, an additional $10 billion would funnel into the Michigan economy and ignite the industry’s workforce.
“You know it would create about 68,500 plus job years supported," Rivet explains. "Now what that means is that there are already some people in this industry, but they are going to stay employed for that ten years. That is a four and half billion payroll boost to the economy over those 10 years. And overall we’re talking 10.3 billion in economic activity that will occur by creating this Michigan based generation by renewables.”
Earlier this year, Consumers Energy announced it would stop using coal to generate electricity by 2040 while promising to increase its renewable energy output by 40% as well.
