EXCLUSIVE: As the nation pivots from traditional fossil fuels to renewable power, the market could be flooded with jobs that require skill sets that many HBCUs are already providing.

Eric Powell, Director for North America at Partners in Performance, sees great potential for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to be at the forefront of the emerging industry of renewable energy.

The Black energy executive thinks as the nation pivots from traditional fossil fuels to renewable power the market will be flooded with jobs that require skill sets that many HBCUs are already providing through programs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

“If we fully participate in the development of technology and so forth, it’s a way to get a shift of purely consumers to producers and business owners within this whole new energy value chain,” Powell told theGrio.

Powell anticipates that new economic opportunities will spring up in manufacturing and mining industries that are tied to the development of batteries, software development, wind and solar engineering, and infrastructure.

To meet the growing market demand with a skilled workforce, Powell thinks “there needs to be a partnership among the institutions in corporate America.”

Source: https://thegrio.com/