For instance, the city of Austin has said it would like 30 percent of the power delivered by Austin Energy to come from renewable energy by 2020.

“Predicting the green jobs needed is in part crystal-balling what it is going to take to reach that [the city’s] goal,” King said.

Meanwhile, King and others wonder whether the area might be overtraining in the areas of solar-panel installation or energy auditing—two renewable-energy programs at Austin Community College.

But Mike Midgley, vice president of workforce education at ACC, said the college is sensitive to oversupplying the market.

As with its other workforce training programs, ACC closely monitors the employment demands in renewable-energy fields, Midgley said.

“We do not want to overtrain folks in an area where there are simply no job openings,” Midgley said. “So far, we’ve been successful in not flooding the market.”

With that concern in mind, ACC does not widely market its renewable-energy programs, Midgley said.

ACC also encourages its students to cross-train in complementary areas to give them well-rounded skill sets that are more marketable, Midgley said.

Anticipating and responding to green industries are now a priority for ACC and other green workforce trainers, such as the University of Texas, Skillpoint Alliance, Austin Electrical JATC, and American Youthworks.

José Beceiro, director of clean energy at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, said the availability of workforce training programs is one asset the city is using to attract new businesses to the area.

Austin’s high-tech and semiconductor industries also give the city an advantage when it comes to the green workforce.

“There are plenty of highly educated workers here in Austin that can be easily retooled and repurposed for some of the newer clean-tech manufacturing operations that we are trying to recruit,” Beceiro said.

Stanbery of the Texas Foundation for Innovative Communities agrees that Austin’s workforce training resources will help draw green industries to the area.

“As we train people, it removes the risk to new business coming into the market to know they won’t have to import talent and the people that are here are already networked with local businesses,” Stanbery said.