White House targets increasing solar energy usage to 45% by 2050

The White House on Wednesday unveiled a plan for solar energy to supply roughly half of the nation's electricity by 2050.

The target for solar is to increase from 3% of power in 2020 to 40% by 2035 and then to 45 percent by 2050.

To reach these targets, significant investment across industries will be necessary. Solar installations in the United States reached a new high in 2020, but annual solar capacity additions will need to double through 2025 before quadrupling from the 2020′s level each year between 2025 and 2030.

Solar energy may generate 1,600 GW on a zero-carbon system by 2050, providing more power than is now consumed in all residential and business structures in the country. Due to growing electrification in the transportation, construction, and industrial sectors, decarbonizing the whole energy system may result in as much as 3,000 GW of solar by 2050, the U.S. Department of Energy report said.

The solar power target is part of the Biden administration's bigger aim to achieve an emissions-free grid by 2035 and a decarbonized energy system by 2050. Other zero-carbon energy sources, most notably wind, would make up the difference in a generation not provided by solar.

Wind and solar combined will provide 75% of power by 2035 and 90% by 2050, completely changing the electrical grid. Storage deployment increases flexibility and resilience, increasing from 30 GW to roughly 400 GW in 2035 and 1,700 GW in 2050.

“The study illuminates the fact that solar, our cheapest and fastest-growing source of clean energy could produce enough electricity to power all of the homes in the U.S. by 2035 and employ as many as 1.5 million people in the process,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, in a statement.

The research comes as extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change cause stress on the United States' power system.

“This is code red; the nation and the world are in peril. And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact,” President Biden said Tuesday while visiting Hurricane Ida-affected communities in New York and New Jersey.

According to the study's estimates, solar will employ 500,000 to 1.5 million people across the country by 2035. In all, the renewable energy transition will create around 3 million employments across all technologies.

Moreover, Carbon emissions reductions and better air quality result in savings ranging from $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion, greatly outweighing the additional expenses associated with the transition to clean energy.

To achieve the goal continued technological advancements that reduce the cost of solar energy are required for broad solar deployment apart from major advances in grid flexibility.

Inputs from CNBC