The US Department of Energy issued an assessment that the country may achieve 40% decarbonized electricity in the grid by 2035 and 45% decarbonized electricity by 2050. The study estimates that the largest share of decarbonized electricity would come from solar (45-46%), followed by wind (36%), nuclear (11-13%), hydropower (5-6%) and some other such as biomass and geothermal (1%). In terms of renewables, this amounts to 35% renewable electricity by 2035 and 40% renewable electricity by 2045.
Notably, the growth in renewable electricity would require a continuous effort of solar and wind installations all across the states, reaching as much as cumulative 1,000 GW solar by 2035, with nearly 20-25 million PV systems nation-wide. In other words, US needs to install over some 30 GW solar annually from now by 2025 and ramp it up to 60 GW/year, a dramatic increase from 15 GW in 2020. While 2020 was a record year in terms of solar installations across the US, the increase from 15 GW/year to 60+ GW/year would produce a dramatic change in the industry landscape.
Such a significant scale-up would also require massive digitalization of distributed solar planning, construction processes and O&M management as well as significant regulation easing.
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