Hawai'i's clean-energy sector is one of the fastest-growing in the United States, at least when measured by overall job growth.

That's one of the findings of a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which found the number of clean-energy jobs here rose almost 44 percent during the decade ending in 2007.

The job growth was about six times the state's overall job growth of 7.3 percent during that period, according to Pew's "The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses, and Investments Across America."

"The Aloha State has a small but fast-growing piece of America's clean energy economy," said Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew's U.S. Global Warming Campaign.

"Hawai'i's jobs in the clean-energy economy grew from about 1,900 in 1998 to more than 2,700 in 2007 — a much faster growth rate than that of total jobs."

Hawai'i's clean-energy job growth also outstripped the national average of 9.1 percent. Hawai'i had the eighth-fastest job growth among states.

Still, the number of jobs represented by clean energy was paltry compared with the total in Hawai'i's economy, representing 0.42 percent of the state's 651,900 jobs.

That may be changing, given the state's growing emphasis on renewable energy sources. Gov. Linda Lingle's administration has set a goal of getting 70 percent of its energy from sustainable resources by 2030.