What would it take to decarbonize the electric grid by 2035? A new report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) examines the types of clean energy technologies and the scale and pace of deployment needed to achieve 100% clean electricity, or a net-zero power grid, in the United States by 2035. This would be a major stepping stone to economy-wide decarbonization by 2050.
The study, done in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and with funding support from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, is an initial exploration of the transition to a 100% clean electricity power system by 2035 — and helps to advance understanding of both the opportunities and challenges of achieving the ambitious goal.
Overall, NREL finds multiple pathways to 100% clean electricity by 2035 that would produce significant benefits, but the exact technology mix and costs will be determined by research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and infrastructure investment decisions over the next decade.
“There is no one single solution to transitioning the power sector to renewable and clean energy technologies,” said Paul Denholm, principal investigator and lead author of the study. “There are several key challenges that we still need to understand and will need to be addressed over the next decade to enable the speed and scale of deployment necessary to achieve the 2035 goal.”
The new report comes on the heels of the enactment of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which — in tandem with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) — is estimated to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. The impact of the IRA and BIL energy provisions are expected to be most pronounced for the power sector, with initial analyses estimating that grid emissions could decline to 68%–78% below 2005 levels by 2030. The longer-term implications of the new laws are uncertain, but they likely will not get us all the way to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035.
None of the scenarios presented in the report include the IRA and BIL energy provisions, but their inclusion is not expected to significantly alter the 100% systems explored — and the study’s insights on the implications of achieving net-zero power sector decarbonization by 2035 are expected to still apply.
Future Scenarios To Answer the Key Questions
To examine what it would take to fully decarbonize the U.S. power sector by 2035, NREL leveraged decades of research on high-renewable power systems, from the Renewable Electricity Futures Study, to the Storage Futures Study, to the Los Angeles 100% Renewable Energy Study, to the Electrification Futures Study, and more.
Using its publicly available flagship Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) capacity expansion model, NREL evaluated supply-side scenarios representing a range of possible pathways to a net-zero power grid by 2035 — from the most to the least optimistic availability and costs of technologies.
Unlike other NREL studies, the 2035 study scenarios consider many new factors: a 2035 full decarbonization timeframe, higher levels of electrification and an associated increase in electricity demand, increased electricity demand from carbon dioxide removal technologies and clean fuels production, higher reliance on existing commercial renewable energy generation technologies, and greater diversity of seasonal storage solutions.
For each scenario, NREL modeled the least-cost generation, energy storage, and transmission investment portfolio to maintain safe and reliable power during all hours of the year.
“For the study, ReEDS helped us explore how different factors — like siting constraints or evolving technology cost reductions — might influence the ability to accelerate renewable and clean energy technology deployment,” said Brian Sergi, NREL analyst and co-author of the study.