LANSING – Clean energy systems will help the state rebuild its jobs base, but efforts like Wednesday’s expected announcement of grants for battery development are still needed to build both the industry to supply the energy and the demand for it, said Keith Cooley, CEO of NextEnergy, at a press conference promoting investment in the sector.

Clean energy businesses will create about three times as many jobs with the same investment as will traditional energy providers, said Kate Gordon, vice president of energy policy for the Center for American Progress, which hosted the media call.

“Between the recovery act and the clean energy bill, there about $150 billion new dollars in clean energy spending,” Gordon said. If the clean energy bill, pending in the U.S. Senate, passes as currently drafted, the two pieces of federal spending legislation would create 1.7 million new jobs, about 54,000 of those in Michigan.

Cooley acknowledged that 54,000 jobs was a fraction of the jobs lost in the state over the last decade, but he said the losses have to be made back in fits and starts. “We will not gain those back 100,000 at a time,” he said.

But he said both the state and federal government have to continue to provide support to get the clean energy industry going.

“Gas at $4 a gallon was a great thing to provide an impetus for these things to happen,” he said. “We need to find a way through incentives that the work that has begun now can continue.”

While he did not endorse increasing fuel prices as the best support for the new energy industry, he said the state renewable portfolio standard also has helped to create demand. A federal RPS, he said, would further bolster the sector.

“Some form of national RPS is clearly needed if we going to meet the challenges that are going to sneak up and bite us in the near future,” he said.

And he said the federal battery development assistance expected to be announced Wednesday at NextEnergy’s offices by Vice President Joe Biden will also help to boost both the sector and NextEnergy’s efforts to help auto suppliers move into it.

“I think this is a reflection of the role we’ve been trying to play as an honest broker in all this,” Cooley said of Biden’s scheduled visit and announcement.

But he said the sector, and the government incentives, have to be open to innovation. “What we really believe is going to happen is a new disruptive technology will come about. That will help us to jump from where we are now to leap to new opportunities,” he said. “Some of those aren’t even invented yet. Those technologies in their own right will drive additional jobs too”

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