by Brianna Crandall — November 23, 2015—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on November 13 released the 2015 Revolution…Now report, detailing the state of several clean energy technologies available today in the United States, which provide technology solutions to climate change.
The updated report builds upon the past Revolution…Now report, showing dramatically increasing deployment and decreasing costs of four transformational technologies: wind turbines, solar technologies, electric vehicles (EVs), and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
The 2015 update shows that impressive cost reductions continue to drive adoption of clean energy technologies. The report covers the rapid growth of photovoltaic (PV) solar modules for both large, utility-scale PV plants and smaller, rooftop, distributed PV systems that have achieved significant deployment nationwide.
The findings include:
- Between 2008 and 2014, land-based wind energy accounted for 31% of all new installed U.S. generation capacity, in part due to early investments from the Energy Department.
- By 2014, more than eight gigawatts of distributed solar PV were installed, which is enough to power roughly one million American homes.
- An average EV reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 48% compared to a gasoline-powered car; the emissions avoided by the nearly 300,000 EVs sold in the United States through 2014 is equivalent to taking nearly 150,000 gasoline-powered cars off the road.
- A total of 78 million LED bulbs have been installed through 2014, a six-fold increase since 2012.
The 2015 Revolution…Now report is available on the DOE Web site.
