By 2020, we will need to make about a third of all energy from renewable sources by 2050.

But what will that mean for the environment and for our families? 

To address this question, we have partnered with the Global Environment Facility at the University of California, Irvine, to identify the most sustainable way to harness energy from the sun and other renewable sources in the future. 

The results are the Solar Energy Research Institute’s Solar Renewables 2050: A Practical Approach, a roadmap to the future, a new research toolkit, and an online resource of information for developers, investors, and decision makers.

Solar Renewables will be released on April 18, 2020.

We’re delighted to have been part of the Solar Renewable 2050 project to bring it to life and we hope that you will join us for a conversation about what the future holds.

We look forward to hearing your comments and ideas on the subject.

We will be making further announcements on the progress of the project in the coming months.

To get started, read on for the results of the first of two focus groups we held in April and May to better understand how people view solar energy and its impact on the environment.

We also shared the results from our first public meeting in May.

We are grateful for the support of the UC Irvine Renewable Energy Center and the Sustainable Energy Initiative at the UC Berkeley Center for Environmental and Biological Sciences, as well as the collaboration of local, state, and federal agencies, the solar industry, and philanthropists.

We appreciate your support and are grateful to our advisors, advisors-in-residence, advisors at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

We are grateful also to our supporters, including our Solar Energy Leadership Institute, the Solar Photovoltaic Institute, Solar Energy America, SolarReserve, and the Solar Institute.