New Department of Energy Issue Brief Details How Solar Investments Create Good-Paying Jobs and Reduce Consumer Costs for Energy
Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a new issue brief that details a bright future for solar power, good jobs, and affordable energy in the United States. President Biden’s proposed investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and Build Back Better Agenda will invest in the infrastructure, manufacturing, innovation, and incentives for solar energy that we need to grow good-paying, union jobs at home, make solar energy affordable for all American families, and accelerate the deployment of net-zero energy across the country. These critical investments will unlock the full potential of solar and help fight the climate crisis.
To spotlight how President Biden’s plans will grow solar jobs and lower costs for working families, Biden-Harris Administration officials are traveling across the country to meet with industry, academia, homeowners, and stakeholders to discuss the benefits of solar. Today, National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy will meet with local climate leaders and experts at a California university to see how the school is leveraging clean energy, while Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will tour First Solar’s solar panel manufacturing facility in Lake Township, Ohio, and meeting with workers. First Solar already supports 1,600 jobs in Ohio, and this new factory expansion will create about 500 new jobs. Yesterday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was in Alaska touring renewable energy labs and discussing game-changing clean energy technologies with local businesses.
The DOE issue brief – Investing in the Clean Energy Future: Solar Energy Research, Deployment, and Workforce Priorities – details the immense growth opportunities that exist in the solar energy industry for workers and families, and how investments like those proposed by President Biden can supercharge the benefits of these opportunities. In particular, the issue brief explains:
- Investment in Solar Deployment Supports the U.S. Clean Energy Revolution. Solar will play an important role in reaching President Biden’s 2035 clean electricity goal – alongside other sources of carbon-pollution free electricity, including onshore and offshore wind, existing power plants retrofitted with carbon capture or green hydrogen, geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear. Solar is already the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation in the nation – growing nearly 4,000 percent in just over a decade, from about 2.5 gigawatts (GWdc) of solar capacity in 2010 to over 100 GWdc today. The pipeline of new solar projects in 2021 is on pace to hit record highs. To reach a largely decarbonized electricity sector by 2035, solar deployment would need to accelerate to three to four times faster than the current rate by 2030. Large scale decarbonization of the electricity sector could move solar from 3 percent of generation today to over 40 percent by 2035.
Realizing this potential for solar generation requires historic investments to accelerate deployment of residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar systems, including in disadvantaged and low-income communities. The proposed clean energy investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and …….