This is not a green jobs openings column; there are already a number of those. The aim of this regular column is to track the comings and goings of senior staff in the green energy and environmental field.

But sometimes a jobs announcement is too compelling not to announce.

In a solar industry in transition, with daily news of consolidation and attrition, SolarCity's hiring situation warrants notice. The solar and energy efficiency installer and financier has more than 300 job openings across the country, according to its website. SolarCity hired 100 new employees in June to bring its total workforce to more than 1,900 in 14 states. 
 
U.S. solar capacity doubled in 2011 over 2012, and increased 85 percent in the first quarter of 2012 over the same period in 2011, according to GTM Research. Much of the job growth has come in the downstream installation and financing sector.

An analysis of the potential SolarCity IPO here.



Banyan Energy, a developer of solar concentrator optics, named Rusty Schmit as CEO. Schmit founded Advent Solar, an emitter wrap-through solar firm acquired by Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) in 2009.



In the aftermath of the Abound Solar bankruptcy, we'll be seeing a lot of Abound employees moving to new positions. Former Abound VP President of Global Sales Erik Mikysa is now VP of Business Development at Ampulse, a startup which claims that the firm’s "c-Si thin-film technology takes advantage of HW-CVD techniques to directly deposit a very thin layer of c-Si onto a uniquely textured and flexible metal substrate."
 

Former SunPower COO Dennis Arriola returned to his previous employer, Southern California Gas, as Chief Operating Officer. Southern California Gas is the nation's largest natural gas distribution utility and a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE). 



Wave energy developer Aquamarine Power named Paul Capell as its new chairman. Aquamarine Power’s technology is a wave-powered pump which pushes high pressure water to drive a conventional onshore hydro-electric turbine. The firm is developing a commercial 40-megawatt wave farm off the coast of Lewis in Scotland. Shareholders include SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy) and ABB.