Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs) are a key tool for developing, scaling, and sustaining a diverse pipeline of trained talent ready to power the transition to a clean energy future. Through a customizable, employer-driven, earn-while-you learn training model, RAPs help address critical workforce challenges while creating inclusive pathways to family-sustaining clean energy careers in a wide variety of occupations. This toolkit is intended to provide employers and other stakeholders with the background information and supplemental resources needed to implement RAPs to develop a clean energy workforce. 

Although RAPs have historically not been widely utilized by clean energy employers, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), and various legislative and regulatory measures at the state level, are quickly changing the workforce development landscape across the clean energy industry. The IRA requires apprentices enrolled in RAPs to make up a minimum percentage of the construction labor on commercial energy efficiency measures and large-scale clean energy projects (≥ 1MW) to receive the full value of the available tax credits / deductions  (12.5% of all “laborers and mechanics” for projects commencing in 2023 and 15% in 2024 and beyond). While this federal requirement is focused on the physical labor for commercial and utility-scale projects, RAPs are also an effective workforce development tool for companies working in the residential sector, and for occupations outside of manual construction trades.