Green Jobs: Is Indian Solar Sector Struggling To Get The Right People?

During Saur Energy's recent Solar Trailblazers event held in Bengaluru, a remarkable panel discussion unfolded that revealed the hidden crisis beneath India's booming solar success story. While the country celebrates massive capacity additions and manufacturing milestones, a critical challenge remains largely unspoken at industry conferences, that is green jobs and employment: finding and keeping the right people.

The conversation, moderated by Prasanna Singh, Group Editor & Co-founder of Saur Energy International, brought together five industry veterans who painted a vivid picture of an industry experiencing unprecedented growth pains. Their collective insights revealed an ecosystem in desperate need of human capital solutions.

Key Speaker Insights

Neeti Sharma, CEO, TeamLease Digital: The Talent Gap Reality

Neeti provided crucial data from the recruitment frontlines, revealing that while hiring volumes aren't extremely high, companies are seeking highly specific skill sets with experience in renewable energy sectors. Her key observations included:

The renewable energy sector has witnessed a 30-40% increase in skill requirements over the past 2-3 years, particularly in energy storage, green hydrogen, and solar technologies. However, talent availability remains concentrated in established hubs like Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, forcing companies to consider migration-based hiring with compensatory packages to match. The challenge isn't volume—it's the specificity of expertise demanded by employers.

Neeti highlighted a significant shift in salary competitiveness: renewable energy roles now offer INR 4-4.5 lakhs as starting salaries, matching IT industry standards that have stagnated at around INR 4 lakhs. This compensation parity, combined with IT industry stagnation over the past 2-3 years, creates an opportunity for renewable energy to attract engineering talent. The sector benefits from roles combining digital transformation, energy, and sustainability - making it attractive to tech-savvy graduates seeking meaningful career alternatives.

She also emphasised the gender diversity challenge, noting the sector's struggle to attract female talent and the need for consistent awareness and outreach efforts to encourage women's participation in both renewable energy courses and careers.

She also highlighted that models like Karnataka’s—where the state incentivises industries to skill candidates through a state-funded 2–3 month internship programme followed by hiring—could help bridge the industry-ready workforce gap.

Shravan Gupta, Director, Cosmic PV Power: The Manufacturing Explosion

Shravan's testimony provided an example of the industry's explosive growth and its human resource implications, with the help of his manufacturing company’s growth hat underlined the broader changes sweeping through the sector.

Cosmic PV Power's workforce expansion illustrates a remarkable story on these lines. Starting with just 20 people five years ago, growing to around 100 people by April 2024, and then exploding to 1,500 people within just 15 months as the firm scaled from 500 MW to  3 GW manufacturing blueprint. This represents a 1,400% workforce increase in little over a year, highlighting the unprecedented demand for human resources in solar manufacturing.

The salary revolution he described was equally dramatic. A quality department operator who joined the company now earns approximately INR 1 lakh per month as a quality manager after just four and a half years - representing a 600-700% salary growth. Plant managers who previously earned around INR 70,000 now command INR 5 lakh per month. More than 10 people in his mid-sized organisation (INR 1000 crore revenue) earn over INR 50 lakh annually.

Shravan candidly admitted to accepting workers "without any filtration" through contractors who source talent from across India - Odisha, northern and eastern states - diversity, but also revealing the desperation for human resources. 

Robin Rajesh, Director, Premium Renewables India: The EPC Training Challenge

Robin brought the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) perspective, highlighting unique challenges in field-based solar installation work.

The EPC sector faces a critical "train and leave" problem, that is, skilled workers from electrical and other domains receive training under senior project engineers for about a year, then move to better opportunities elsewhere. This constant talent drain forces companies to continuously invest in training without long-term retention benefits.

Robin's company took proactive steps by partnering with St. Aloysius College in Mangalore to design a renewable energy curriculum for both ITI and degree programs. They developed syllabi, brought in international manufacturers for training, provided lab equipment donations, and created hands-on project experiences. However, even with these initiatives, talent demand remains unmet.

The fundamental challenge he identified is perception: students don't see renewable energy as offering a bright future. This necessitates making renewable energy a component of electrical engineering departments and emphasising that the sector represents a vertical industry domain (unlike horizontal fields like finance) encompassing design, project management, quality testing, and international client coordination—not just field installation work.

Tom George, Senior Manager, Isha Solar: The Academia-Industry Disconnect

Tom's dual perspective as both industry professional and visiting faculty revealed a disconnect between education and employment:

Only five colleges in South India offer Renewable Energy B.Tech courses, with just two institutions providing master's programs. Despite this limited academic infrastructure, industry remains largely unaware of where these graduates originate, while academia simply trains and releases students without meaningful industry connections.

Tom emphasised that renewable energy encompasses diverse white-collar opportunities - design jobs, optimisation roles, project management, quality testing, sales, technical support, and international client coordination. However, public perception remains fixated on "climbing up the roof" installation work, requiring comprehensive awareness campaigns to showcase the sector's professional diversity.

The solution requires government and industry collaboration to create proper B.Tech Energy programs (currently non-existent in India), while companies must actively engage with institutions through internships and job placements. The awareness that the industry offers all kinds of jobs, from labour to technician to even senior managers. Without this bridge-building, the sector will continue relying on hasty cross-training from other industries rather than developing domain expertise.

The Broader Challenge: Speed vs. Structure

The discussion revealed that India's solar sector has experienced "booming, not just growth" - with manufacturing capacity jumping from practically nothing to 100 GW in modules and 25+ GW in cells within just three years. This 300-400 percent growth rate has created unprecedented hiring pressures, forcing companies to prioritise revenue generation over structured human resource development.

The government's Surya Mitra program, while well-intentioned, focuses primarily on rural EPC installation skills rather than comprehensive manufacturing or advanced technical competencies needed by the evolving industry. This gap between government skill development initiatives and actual industry requirements represents a critical policy-implementation disconnect.

The gap between renewable energy and the curriculum is quite observable here and needs urgent attention, as the industry needs expertise and knowledge at all levels.

Looking Forward: Opportunities and Imperatives

The panel consensus suggested that renewable energy's competitive salary structure, combined with IT industry stagnation, creates an unprecedented opportunity for talent acquisition. However, success requires coordinated efforts across multiple fronts:

Immediate Actions Needed:

• Bridge-building between industry and academia through internships and collaborative curriculum development

• Comprehensive awareness campaigns showcasing renewable energy career diversity

• Government skill programs aligned with actual industry requirements rather than generic training

• Structured apprenticeship programs for rapid skill development

Long-term Structural Changes:

• Dedicated B.Tech Energy programs in Indian universities

• Industry-academia partnerships for practical training infrastructure

• Gender diversity initiatives for sustainable talent pipeline development

• Recognition of renewable energy as a distinct professional domain rather than a subset of traditional engineering

The Solar Trailblazers discussion ultimately revealed that while India's renewable energy sector celebrates technological and capacity achievements, its greatest challenge—and opportunity—lies in building human capital infrastructure capable of sustaining this remarkable growth trajectory.

These insights were shared during Saur Energy's recent Solar Trailblazers industry event held in Bengaluru, highlighting the critical intersection between India's renewable energy ambitions and its human resource realities.