Future of clean energy seen from top
Hundreds of feet above the ground, suspended by ropes and battered by powerful winds, Matthew Kelly is living his best life.
Kelly is a wind turbine technician, and his rock climbing background came in handy as he repaired a fiberglass blade at a wind farm in California’s Montezuma Hills, at the northeastern end of the Bay Area.
For 10 hours on a recent day, Kelly was suspended from the top of a 262-foot tower, working on the damaged blade. And then, with the fix in place, his commute home started with a Spider-Man-style descent via rope.
Kelly’s day at the office is part of the evolving story of energy jobs in the United States, which are shifting from fossil fuels to renewables.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that wind turbine service technician will be the country’s fastest-growing occupation this decade, with employment expected to increase by 61%, from 7,000 to 11,300 jobs. (Solar panel installer is third on the fastest-growth list, with a projected 51% increase in jobs.) Median pay for a wind turbine technician is $56,230 a year, or $27.03 per hour — well above the national median wage of $41,950, or $20.17 an hour, according to the federal agency.
Kelly works for Rope Partner, which is based in Santa Cruz and was founded by rock climber Chris Bley in 2001. Bley was inspired by a chance encounter in Joshua Tree National Park with two German climbers who made a living scaling construction sites and churches that needed repairs. His timing couldn’t have been better, given the rapid growth of the U.S. wind energy industry.
Kelly found his way to the “rope access” profession in 2018, after graduating college with a degree in environmental science and policy. The blade he repaired last month spins at the Shiloh II wind farm, which is owned by San Diego-based EDF Renewables, a subsidiary of the French electric utility EDF.
Rope Partner has a roster of about 100 technicians, said Lucas Llado, vice president of business development. Many of them are climbers, rafters, skiers and other adventurous outdoors types who spend part of the year scaling wind turbines. The winter months are the slowest for repairs, with jobs picking up as the weather improves in the spring.
“These guys are nomadic by nature,” Llado said. “It’s kind of a lifestyle alignment that allows these technicians to make a living working off of rope, and also getting to see parts of the country or the world, wherever we’re working.”
At the high end, Llado said, top-level technicians can make six-figure salaries, often without a college education. And the work is crucial to the clean energy transition.
Wind turbine blades erode over time, reducing power production. They can crack from the stress they’re under or suffer damage during transportation. Lightning strikes can also require fixes.
“It’s like your car. You need to maintain it to perform,” Llado said. “You can do it preemptively and avoid a large bill or wait for something to break.”
That’s where Kelly and his co-workers come in. To get to his day’s task at Shiloh II, Kelly first climbed a ladder inside a tower that is roughly the height of a 26-story building. Once he emerged at the top, he rappelled down the length of the 148-foot blade in need of repair. After Kelly had established his perch on the blade, Earth-bound colleague Lloyd Hardin worked a set of ropes to hoist up a bucket of tools and supplies.
Kelly said this is his “fourth season” scaling wind turbines, and it’s safe to say he enjoys his job. He likes being able to work half the year and “explore other things” the rest of the time. He’s also a fan of the sweeping views from the tops of the towers.
“It’s pretty great to turn my back or turn my head and have a little lunch break right up in the air,” he said. “It’s a pretty unparalleled situation. And just being at the whims of the element — the winds, the rains, the cold, the hot.”
There are tens of thousands of wind turbines in the United States, and tens of thousands more planned.
Nobody knows for sure what the clean energy future will look like. But Kelly’s view from the top gives a pretty good perspective of the changes on the horizon.
