Energy Earthshots Initiative

Energy Earthshots™ are the frontiers of the clean energy transition. 

They are technical and cost targets in next-generation clean energy technologies the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) knows will be needed to address climate change. 

Together, these goals are accelerating research, development, and demonstration breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions by 2035 and transforming the energy economy. 

Achieving these goals will improve Americans’ lives, creating quality jobs and transforming homes, environments, and livelihoods.

Download the Energy Earthshots fact sheet.

President Biden has bold plans to transition our economy to clean energy and overcome the climate crisis—reducing carbon emissions by 50% to 52% by the end of the decade, securing a 100% clean electrical grid by 2035, and reaching a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. 

At the Leaders’ Summit on Climate on Earth Day 2021, President Biden charged DOE with speeding the development of critical technologies in a suite of innovation areas. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced the need for a new kind of Moonshot.

Energy Earthshots represent a commitment to the collaborative R&D powering the energy transition. DOE is working to expand the solution set and give communities more technologies and more options. When achieved, these targets will support the private-sector launch of new clean energy industries, help create quality jobs, lower energy costs for families across the country, and avoid hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

DOE anticipates a total of six to eight Energy Earthshots.

Energy Earthshots are an all-hands-on-deck call for innovation, collaboration, and acceleration of our clean energy economy by tackling the toughest remaining barriers to quickly deploy emerging clean energy technologies at scale. To meet these targets, DOE will leverage diverse expertise and talent at American universities, businesses, and national laboratories to accelerate research and development in top linchpin technologies.

DOE has held annual Energy Earthshot Summits bringing together a wide range of stakeholders and discussing progress toward the Shot goals.

Find more information about past Summits below:

• Enhanced Geothermal Shot™ Summit | Department of Energy
• Floating Offshore Wind Shot Summit
• Carbon Negative Shot Summit 
• Long Duration Storage Shot Summit 
• Hydrogen Shot Summit. 

Hydrogen Shot^™, announced June 7, 2021, sets an ambitious yet achievable cost target to accelerate innovations and spur demand of clean hydrogen by reducing the cost by 80%, to $1 per 1kg of clean hydrogen within 1 decade.

Long Duration Storage Shot^™, announced July 14, 2021, aims to achieve affordable grid storage for clean power—anytime, anywhere—by reducing the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% for systems that deliver 10+ hours of duration within a decade.

Carbon Negative Shot^™, announced Nov. 5, 2021, is the all-hands-on-deck call for innovation in technologies and approaches that will remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and durably store it at meaningful scales for less than $100/net metric ton of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) within a decade.

Enhanced Geothermal Shot^™, announced Sept. 8, 2022, is a department-wide effort to dramatically reduce the cost of enhanced geothermal systems by 90%, to $45 per megawatt hour by 2035. 

Floating Offshore Wind Shot^™, announced Sept. 15, 2022, with the goal of driving down costs to $45 per megawatt-hour by 2035 to spur U.S. leadership in floating offshore wind technology, accelerate decarbonization, and deliver benefits for coastal communities.

Industrial Heat Shot^™ –announced September 21, 2022, is a Department-wide initiative to develop cost-competitive industrial heat decarbonization technologies with at least 85% lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. 

Clean Fuels & Products Shot^™—announced May 24, 2023, focuses on decarbonizing the fuel and chemical industry through alternative sources of carbon to advance cost-effective technologies with a minimum of 85% lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.