US City Becoming Centre For Green Jobs

San Diego is quickly becoming a technology epicenter for green jobs, bio-tech research and a host of technology and engineering jobs, says a recent article in U.S. News & World Report. San Diego now ranks as one of the top ten places for technology jobs according to USN&WR, with one of the highest salary bases in the country. USN&WR writes:

“Between the University of California-San Diego, San Diego State University, and the University of San Diego, research plays a big role in the community, and researchers draw funding—which helps nurture further innovations, according to Connect, a regional nonprofit. Connect’s chief operating officer, Camille Sobrian, says new data collected by the organisation show significant increases in the number of start-ups and the amount of venture capital funding in the second quarter.”

City officials boast that the metro area has one of the highest concentrations of high-tech companies in the nation. San Diego also ranks fourth for tech salary pay, according to Glassdoor data—above the more expensive cities of Washington, New York, and Boston.

In news today, San Diego will be aiming to get a digital smart grid.

In a partnership between San Diego Gas & Electric, the University of California, San Diego and the non-profit company CleanTECH, San Diego agreed to form a 25 organisation-deep coalition to transform its electrical grid in to a high performing digital smart grid with help from the Federal government’s economic stimulus money.

Under the Obama administration, the government has set aside $4.5 billion toward green energy iniatives, and this digital grid coalition is targeting $100 million from those funds. From a news release on the coalition:

The coalition will, in part, create a community-scale utility system within the region that can interconnect greater percentages of renewable generation at both the distribution- and transmission-system levels, store electricity and use automated sensors and communication technologies to help manage these intermittent energy resources. The coalition also will focus on accommodating a growing number of electric vehicles and empower customers to exert greater control over their own energy usage with the most advanced technology. If successful, the prototype project could be recreated on a larger scale anywhere in the world.

“San Diego is an ideal location for smart grid development because the region has one of the greenest universities in the nation and plentiful sources of renewable energy,” said Michael Niggli, COO of SDG&E, in the news release. “We also have civic and industry leaders who are capitalizing on these advantages to attract a critical mass of cutting-edge alternative energy enterprises.”