Battery storage is key to the clean energy revolution-and adapting to a warming world. battery capacity added in 2021 was paired with solar power plants. Alongside the boom in solar has been a surge in companion battery storage: More than 93 percent of U.S. What to do when the sun doesn’t shine, you might ask. From 2020 through 2026, solar will account for more than half of new electricity generation worldwide. By 2035, it could account for as much as 40 percent of electricity generation. Solar energy currently accounts for just under 3 percent of the electricity generated in the United States-enough to power 18 million homes-but is growing at a faster rate than any other source. homes is projected to have rooftop solar panels, which emit no greenhouse gases or other pollutants, and which generate electricity year-round ( in hot or cold weather) so long as the sun is shining. The solar panels that you may have seen on rooftops or at ground level are made up of many of these cells working together. Solar energy is produced when light from the sun is absorbed by photovoltaic cells and turned directly into electricity. For example, weatherproofing buildings, installing cool roofs, replacing boilers and air conditioners with super-efficient heat pumps, and yes, switching out light bulbs from incandescent to LED can all make a big dent in our energy consumption. Other strategies are extraordinarily simple. Some of these climate-friendly strategies can be enormously complex, such as helping utility companies adopt performance-based regulation systems, in which they no longer make more money simply by selling more energy but rather by improving the services they provide. What’s more, energy efficiency strategies can be applied across multiple sectors: in our power plants, electrical grids, factories, vehicles, buildings, home appliances, and more. ![]() As the technology harnessing it has advanced over the past 40 years, efficiency has contributed more to the United States’s energy needs than oil, coal, gas, or nuclear power. Considered this way, efficiency is our largest energy resource. (We can also fully realize our clean energy potential if we invest in repairing our aging grid infrastructure and installing new transmission lines.) While this transformation is taking place, automakers-as well as governments-are preparing for a future when the majority of vehicles on the road will produce zero emissions.Įnergy efficiency has been referred to as “the first fuel” after all, the more energy efficient our systems are, the less actual fuel we have to consume, whether rooftop solar energy or gas power. And modeling by NRDC has found that wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear could account for as much as 80 percent of U.S. In 2021, wind and solar generated a record 10 percent of electricity worldwide. ![]() Wind and solar continue to account for ever-larger shares of electricity generation. But in order to meet the goal of reducing global carbon emissions by at least 45 percent below 2010 levels before 2030-which scientists tell us we must do if we’re to avoid the worst, deadliest impacts of climate change-we must act faster. Thankfully, with each passing year, clean energy is making gains as technology improves and production costs go down. We must replace coal, oil, and gas with renewable and efficient energy sources. In addition to altering the climate, dirty energy also comes with unacceptable ecological and human health impacts. The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas in our buildings, industrial processes, and transportation is responsible for the vast majority of emissions that are warming the planet-more than 75 percent. ![]() The single-most important thing that we can do to combat climate change is to drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.
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