As of January 14, 2025, the US Department of Energy (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), along with the US Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Defense, released a study showing that there is significant potential for further expansion of renewable energy production on federal lands. [1] The study finds that onshore federal lands in the contiguous United States could support over 7,700 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity. Researchers found that 51 to 84 GW of renewable energy could be deployed on federal lands by 2035, requiring only half of one percent of total federal land area in the US. That level of deployment by 2035 is enough to provide up to 10% of the reliable, renewable energy needed to reach net-zero emissions in the electricity sector. To understand future renewable energy deployment on federal lands, researchers created seven scenarios with several possibilities. They used a power sector model for each scenario to determine the most cost-effective way to deploy storage, new generation, and transmission nationwide to meet future energy demand. One of the key findings suggests that there is potential for 5,750 GW of utility-scale photovoltaics, 875 GW of land-based wind, 130 GW of hydrothermal, and 975 GW of enhanced geothermal generation on federal lands.
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