Factsheets

Patterns of Use

While energy is essential to modern society, most primary sources are non-renewable. The current fuel mix is associated with a multitude of environmental impacts, including global climate change, acid rain, freshwater use, hazardous air pollution, and radioactive waste. Renewable energy has the potential to meet demand with a much smaller environmental footprint and can help to alleviate other pressing problems, such as energy security, by contributing to a distributed and diversified energy infrastructure. 

• 82% of U.S. energy comes from fossil fuels, 8.7% from nuclear, and 8.8% from renewable sources. In 2023, renewables surpassed coal in energy generation.¹
• Wind and solar are the fastest growing renewable sources, but contribute less than 3% of total energy used in the U.S.¹ 
• Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is measured as lifetime costs divided by energy production. LCOE for utility-scale renewable energy such as solar and onshore wind has been lower than fossil energy, though 2023 and 2024 saw a rise in renewable LCOE.²  

Major Renewable Sources

Wind (See Wind Energy Factsheet)

• U.S. onshore wind resources have a potential capacity of 9,124 GW⁴, and current installed capacity of over 144 GW⁵. Offshore wind resources are potentially 4,249 GW⁶, with a current installed capacity of 42 MW, and the development pipeline contained over 50,000 MW of projects in 2023⁷.
• Over 8.5 GW of wind capacity was installed in the U.S. in 2022, the lowest addition since 2018, due to supply chain pressures, higher interest rates, interconnection and siting challenges, and the reduction of Production Tax Credit (PTC).⁵
• The PTC has significantly influenced wind development, but cycles of legislative enactment and expiration lead to year-to-year changes in investment.⁸ 
• Based on the average U.S. electricity fuel mix, a 1.88 MW wind turbine (U.S. average size in 2022) displaces 3,800 t of CO₂ emissions per year.⁹ The U.S DOE estimated that by 2050, 404 GW of cumulative wind capacity would meet 35% of U.S. electricity demand, and avoid 12.3 Gt of CO₂ emissions, a 14% reduction from 2013.¹⁰

Solar (See Solar PV Energy Factsheet)

• The U.S. manufactured 0.7% of PV cells and 1.9% of PV modules globally in 2022.¹² 
• Solar capacity has grown at an average of 22% annually over the last decade. A record 32.4 GW was installed in 2023, raising the total capacity to almost 180 GW in 2022. Solar has added the most generating capacity to the grid for the last five years. It accounted for 53% of new generating capacity in 2023, the first time in 80 years that a renewable energy resource was a majority of capacity additions. PV deployment is expected to quadruple over the next decade to 673 GW.¹³
• The U.S. DOE’s SunShot Initiative aims to reduce the price of solar energy 50% by 2030, which is projected to lead to 33% of U.S. electricity demand met by solar and an 18% decrease in electricity sector GHG emissions by 2050.¹⁴

Biomass (See Biofuels Factsheet)

• Biomass is derived from plant materials, including agriculture residues, forest resources, purpose-grown energy crops, urban wood waste, and food waste, that can be converted into fuels, energy, or chemicals.¹⁵ 
• In 2023, 38.5% of U.S. biomass energy consumption was from wood, mostly as pulp, paper, and paperboard industry waste products. Waste, such as municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge, and agricultural byproducts and other biomass, supplied an additional 8%.¹
• Biomass has low net CO₂ emissions compared to fossil fuels. At combustion, it releases CO₂ it pulled from the atmosphere to grow. Emissions are associated with processing, and  biomass can have high land use intensity. Willow biomass requires 121 acres of land to generate one GWh of electricity per year, higher than other renewable energy sources.¹⁶
• U.S. ethanol production is projected to reach 47M gal/d in 2050¹⁷ from 43M gal/d in 2023¹.

Geothermal (See Geothermal Energy Factsheet)

• Hydrothermal resources, i.e., steam and hot water from deep underground, are sources of geothermal energy available primarily in the western U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii to generate electricity. Ground source heat pumps (GSHP) can be used almost anywhere to extract heat from shallow ground, which stays at relatively constant temperatures year-round.¹⁸
• GSHP use has been growing 3% annually, with over 1.7M units installed in the U.S.¹⁹ The market potential for GSHPs to provide heating and cooling in the residential sector is 28M households by 2050.²⁰
• As of 2022, the U.S. has over 23 geothermal district heating and cooling systems that supply buildings and industries through a local distribution network²¹, with the economic potential for 17,500 systems by 2050 ²⁰.
• In 2022, the U.S. led the world in geothermal electricity capacity with nearly 4 GW installed, or 24% of the global total.²¹ The U.S. is projected to generate 37B kWh of geothermal electricity by 2050, up from 15.6B kWh in 2022.¹⁷

Hydroelectric

• In the U.S., net electricity generation from conventional hydropower peaked in 1997 at 356 TWh/yr. In 2023, 240 TWh/yr of U.S. electricity came from hydropower.¹
• While hydroelectricity is virtually emission free, methane and CO₂ are emitted from decomposition of vegetation in the reservoir.²² Other environmental concerns include fish injury and mortality, habitat degradation, and water quality impairment. “Fish-friendly” turbines and smaller dams help mitigate some of these problems.²³

Advancing Renewable Energy

• Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and Clean Energy Standard (CES) policies are projected to support an additional 300 TWh of clean electricity supply by 2030.²⁴ See “U.S. Energy System Factsheet” for a map of these policies.
• In addition to federal tax credits (See “U.S. Energy System Factsheet”), state governments also provide policies and incentives for renewable energy, such as rebate, grant, and loan programs; standards for building energy, energy efficiency, and solar/wind permitting; corporate tax deduction, property tax incentive, personal tax credit, sales tax exemption; and feed-in tariff (FIT), net metering, and property assessed clean energy (PACE) programs. Check the DSIRE database or contact your state energy agency to access these benefits.²⁵
• Rebate programs provide cash incentives for qualified equipment installations, typically based on installed capacity. ²⁵
• Net metering — offered in 34 states, D.C., and three U.S. territories — allows customers to sell excess electricity they generate back to the grid.²⁶ Some states are changing rate structures to credit solar energy producers differently.²⁷
• A feed-in tariff (FIT) sets a minimum price per kWh that retail electricity providers must pay renewable electricity generators.²⁸ As of 2024, CA, IN, NY have a FIT.²⁹
• Section 9006 of the Farm Bill, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), funds grants and loan guarantees for agricultural producers and rural small businesses to purchase and install renewable energy systems.³⁰
• PACE programs allow property owners to finance the upfront costs of a solar installation through a voluntary assessment on annual property taxes.³¹
• Green banks are public, quasi-public, or nonprofit financing entities that leverage public and private capital to support clean energy projects that reduce emissions. As of 2021, there were 21 green banks in 16 states and DC.³²