Energy Engineer
Career Area: Engineering
Occupation Group: Chemical, Biomedical, and Related Engineering
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Energy Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $74,105
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $77,017
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Design and develop technologies that produce and store energy, particularly energy from sustainable sources such as wind and solar power. Develop ways for existing buildings and systems to become more energy efficient. May specialize in one type or field of energy production.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 36 | +6.7% |
| Nationwide | 1299 | +3.6% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Energy Engineer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Written Communication: Working experience of Written Communication, which involves any type of message that makes use of the written word. Written communication is the most important and the most effective of any mode of business communication.
- Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
- Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
- Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
- Energy Engineering: Energy engineering or energy systems engineering is a broad field of engineering dealing with energy efficiency, energy services, facility management, plant engineering, environmental compliance and alternative energy technologies.
- Energy Modeling: Energy modeling or energy system modeling is the process of building computer models of energy systems in order to analyze them.
- Scheduling: Working experience making schedules, which are basic time-management tools, consisting of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place withing an organization.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Energy Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Energy Conservation: Energy conservation are efforts made to reduce the consumption of energy by using less of an energy service.
- Energy Analysis: Energy analysis informs EERE decision-making by delivering analytical products in four main areas: Data Resources, Market Intelligence, Energy Systems Analysis, and Portfolio Impacts Analysis.
- Energy Audits: An energy audit is an inspection, survey and analysis of energy flows, for energy conservation in a building, process or system to reduce the amount of energy input into the system without negatively affecting the output(s).
- Energy Solutions: EnergySolutions (stylized as EnergySolutions), headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, is one of the world's largest processors of low level waste (LLW), and is the largest nuclear waste company in the United States.
- Energy Consumption: Energy consumption is the amount of energy or power used.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 27% |
| 3 to 5 years | 50% |
| 6 to 8 years | 13% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Distribution Field Technician I
- Project Manager, Energy Technology And Market Analysis
- Vehicle Energy Model And Toolchain Development Engineer
- Energy Engineer
- Project Manager - Energy
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