Revolution Now
The Future Is Here For Clean Energy Technology
Clean, low-cost energy is transforming the U.S. economy. Over the past decade, we’ve seen the payoff from nearly 40 years of federally funded research and development on clean energy. From wind and solar power to electric vehicles and LED lighting, clean energy technologies are dramatically declining in cost and benefitting more homes and businesses—while reducing pollution and creating millions of new American jobs.1 Clean energy is delivering solutions to help us meet important federal health and environmental safeguards in an increasingly affordable way. The United States must continue to invest in clean energy because today’s technology breakthroughs are building the energy system we need to fight climate change.
Clean energy technologies are dramatically declining in cost and benefitting more homes and businesses—while reducing pollution and creating millions of new American jobs.
Move your cursor over the charts below to see how wind, solar, LED lighting, and electric vehicles are making cleaner, cheaper, and more effective energy solutions available to more Americans. Unimaginable future breakthroughs are possible with sustained funding for research and development (R&D)—which is why it’s so important to maintain the innovation budget at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). It is also critical to strengthen limits on the carbon pollution that drives climate change, which will provide a clear signal to businesses to further invest in clean energy solutions.
Wind
Large wind farms have been around for more than 35 years, but only recently has the cost of wind power declined enough to support significant capacity. In fact, wind has become the cheapest energy source in many regions of the country. Since 2008, the average price of wind energy has dropped by 75 percent, reaching a record low in 2017. As the technology becomes better and cheaper, more utilities are installing wind farms and purchasing more wind power. Nationwide wind capacity grew from 25 gigawatts (GW) in 2008 to more than 89 GW in 2017—enough to power more than 25 million U.S. homes.2
This dramatic increase in wind capacity would not have been possible without technology advancements that result from federal investment in R&D. From 1999 to 2016, the height of wind turbines in the U.S. increased by 49 percent and the blade length grew by 127 percent, allowing each turbine to capture more energy. These technological feats—and their associated benefits—are in part the result of the $2.7 billion that the DOE invested in wind R&D between 1976 and 2017.3 Further R&D investment—in innovations such as even taller wind turbines, advanced control systems, and offshore wind turbine technologies—will continue to lower costs, increase efficiency, and allow us to take even greater advantage of our vast domestic wind resources.
Wind prices represent the capacity-weighted average levelized price of power purchase agreements for a given year. They include the effect of the production tax credit. Sources: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, American Wind Energy Association.4,5
Solar
In little more than a decade, solar technology has evolved from running our calculators to producing enough electricity to power more than 11 million U.S. homes.6 This exciting growth—the fastest of any generating technology—has been possible only because of dramatic cost declines.
The solar industry supports a vibrant clean energy economy, with 270,000 Americans employed in the distributed (on-site) solar sector and another 70,000 working on utility-scale solar energy in 2016.7 Continued R&D investment—in areas such as cutting-edge, high-performance solar cells and grid integration tools—will lower costs further while increasing efficiency and reliability, bringing this clean resource to even more Americans.
Utility-Scale Solar
The cost of installing giant solar farms to generate electricity delivered by utilities decreased by 74 percent from 2008 to 2017. In late 2017, the DOE’s solar R&D office announced that it met its 2020 goal for cost reductions in utility-scale projects—three years early.8 It’s time to reset the goals and push the technological limits even further.
Distributed Solar
A similar trend of plummeting costs has driven the expansion of distributed solar systems, which generate electricity for local homes and businesses either through rooftop solar panels or via community projects that provide power to entire neighborhoods. Costs to install these smaller-scale solar systems have been cut by nearly 60 percent since 2008, enabling a 25-fold increase in adoption by 2017.
Distributed prices shown are for residential systems. Prices for commercial and industrial projects are similar.
Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.9,10
LED Lighting
LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs were barely on the radar in 2009, when only 400,000 of them were installed nationwide. By 2016, more than 400 million bulbs had been installed in light sockets across America—more than double the installations from a year earlier and a thousandfold increase from 2009. LEDs are now a no-brainer. Not only has their price dropped by 94 percent since 2008, but their energy usage is typically 75 to 80 percent lower than equivalent incandescent bulbs, with the best bulbs saving even more.11 That means big electric bill savings for American families.
Further R&D will make LEDs cheaper and more efficient and will also push other lighting technology, such as organic LEDs that create the potential for ultrathin, ultrabright, and potentially even foldable lighting.
Sources: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy.12,13,14
Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles (EVs) are charging into America’s car market in a big way. In 2018, more than 350,000 EVs were sold, bringing the total number on U.S. roads to over one million. Advancements in EV technology have come in many forms—such as better drive trains, lighter materials, and improved charging—but the limiting factor for growth has been battery costs. Federal research has helped bring down the price of lithium-ion batteries by 82 percent since 2010, a feat that has enabled the EV industry to expand.
Future R&D will continue to drive down costs while increasing efficiency and range. These advancements will make EVs accessible to an increasing number of Americans, saving drivers money and reducing emissions in the transportation sector, America's largest source of climate pollution.
Sources: Electric Drive Transportation Association, Bloomberg New Energy Finance.15,16,17, 18
Join the Revolution
Join us in spreading the word about the amazing success of federal energy R&D investments and in supporting increased funding for future clean energy breakthroughs. Two years ago, the DOE discontinued the Revolution Now reports, which it had published annually from 2013 to 2016 to document the success of major clean energy technologies.19 NRDC decided to continue this work, using the same public data sources.
Download images of the charts by clicking the link beneath each one, or download the full dataset. If sharing the charts on social media or in your own material, please credit NRDC and link to NRDC.org/RevolutionNow.
If you have an idea for a better data set for these or other clean energy technologies, let us know!
Sources
1 U.S. Department of Energy (hereinafter DOE), U.S. Energy and Employment Report, January 2017.
2 This number is based on the capacity in the third quarter of 2017; the most recent number is larger. American Wind Energy Association, “Wind Energy Facts at a Glance” (accessed April 2, 2018).
3 The data for 1976–2014 were published in the 2016 Revolution Now report, and the data for 2015–2017 come from past federal budgets. The numbers were adjusted to 2016$ using the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis GDP Budget Deflator.
4 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, 2016 Wind Technologies Market Report data file, figures 2 and 49, October 2017. Note: We made a simple unit conversion in the wind prices.
5 American Wind Energy Association, U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2017 Market Report (public version), January 2018.
6 Solar Energy Industries Association, “What’s in a Megawatt?” 2018.
7 The U.S. Department of Energy reports that 91 percent of solar jobs are in the photovoltaic industry, of which 20.6 percent are in utility-scale solar and 79.4 percent are in distributed resources. DOE, U.S. Energy and Employment Report.
8 Solar Energy Technologies Office, DOE, “2020 Utility-Scale Solar Goal Achieved,” September 2017.
9 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, DOE, Utility-Scale Solar 2017 data file, figures 1 and 8, September 2018.
10 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, DOE, Tracking the Sun report page 18, 2018 update, September 2018; data file figure 5, 2017 update, September 2017.
11 DOE, “How Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs Compare with Traditional Incandescents” (accessed April 2, 2018).
12 Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, DOE, Adoption of Light-Emitting Diodes in Common Lighting Applications, table E.S.1 and figure 4.6, 2017 update, July 2017; figure 3.5, 2015 update, July 2015; figure 2.1, 2013 update, May 2013.
13 Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, DOE, Solid-State Lighting R&D Plan, table 3.1, June 2016.
14 DOE, “LEDs,” Revolution Now, September 2016.
15 Electric Drive Transportation Association, “Electric Drive Sales Dashboard,” 2019.
16 Claire Curry, “Lithium-Ion Battery Costs and Market,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance, July 2017.
17 Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 2018 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, February 2018.
18 Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF Brief: Lithium Battery Prices Fall 18 Percent, December 2018.
19 DOE, “Energy by the Numbers: An Energy Revolution,” Revolution Now, last updated September 2016.