Vice President Joe Biden on Monday released a new report which finds that $100 billion in Recovery Act funding is transforming the economy and creating new jobs, while accelerating significant advances in science and technology.
According to this new analysis, the U.S. is now on-track to achieve three
major cleantech innovation breakthroughs thanks to Recovery Act investments:
- Cutting the cost of solar power in half by 2015, putting it on par with the cost of retail electricity from the grid.
- Cutting the cost of batteries for electric vehicles by 70%
between 2009 and 2015, putting the lifetime cost of an electric vehicle
on-par with that of its non-electric counterpart. - Doubling U.S. renewable energy generation capacity and U.S. renewable
manufacturing capacity by 2012, a breakthrough that would not be
possible without the Recovery Act.
"We’re planting the seeds of innovation, but private companies and the nation’s top researchers are helping them grow, launching entire new industries, transforming our economy and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process," Biden said.
Biden was joined at an announcement event by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and representatives from more than two dozen companies and research institutions that are receiving Recovery Act funding, including Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE); Navistar (NYSE: NAV) and Pacific Biosciences.
The report states that the cost of solar energy is forecast to drop by half between 2009 and 2015. The cost of power from rooftop solar panels will drop from $0.21 per kWh in 2009 to $0.10 per kWh in 2015, which is equivalent to typical household electricity rates. The cost of power from utility-scale solar projects would drop from $0.13 per kWh today to $0.06 in 2015, which is equivalent to the cost of wholesale utility power
Further, the cost of rooftop solar power could drop to as low as $0.06 per kWh by 2030. At that cost, solar power will be significantly cheaper than household electricity rates–and an average household could save more than $400 per year in electricity bills.
The cost of batteries for the typical all-electric vehicle is forecast to fall from $33,000 to $10,000 by 2015, and the cost of typical plug-in hybrid batteries will drop from $13,000 to $4,000.
The report says the cost reduction is the result of Recovery Act investments that are taking advantage of the latest technologies, ramping up manufacturing to much higher levels, and pushing down the cost curve.
The weight of a typical electric-vehicle battery is forecasted to decrease by 33%, from 333 kilograms to 222 kilograms, by 2015. The lighter battery means a lighter car, which means less energy is needed to power the car. A typical battery is expected to last 14 years in 2015 – more than three times as long as the current 4-year lifetime.
The report also says the U.S. is on track to hit President Obama’s target of doubling renewable energy generation by 2012.
Specifically, this target means doubling renewable energy capacity from the 28.8 gigawatts (GW) of solar, wind, and geothermal generation that has been installed as of 2008, to 57.6 GW by the end of 2011. That’s enough capacity to power 16.7 million homes.
President Obama has also set a target of doubling renewable energy manufacturing capacity from an annual output of 6 GW of renewable equipment (like wind turbines or solar panels) to 12 GW by the end of 2011. This will increase the U.S. share of global manufacturing of solar photovoltaic modules from 8% of all production, to 14% by 2012.
The report, titled "The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation," is available as a pdf at the link below.
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