A three-part series of New York Times articles this week examines the speed, challenges and politics of the American economy moving toward clean energy. We highly recommend reading the full articles, but here is a summary of the highlights from the first one.

Global investment into clean technologies such as wind, solar power, electric vehicles and batteries is expected to hit $1.7 trillion this year according to the I.E.A., compared with just over $1 trillion in fossil fuels. For the first time, investment into solar power will surpass investments in drilling for oil. 

Those investments are driving explosive growth and will further bring down the costs of renewables, which are now expected to overtake coal by 2025 as the world’s largest source of electricity.

Graphics courtesy of The New York Times

Since 2009, the cost of solar power has decreased by 83 percent and the cost of producing wind power has fallen by over 50%. The price of lithium-ion battery cells fell 97 percent over the past thirty years, making products like YouSolar’s PowerBloc a viable and attractive alternative for powering homes and businesses, paired with renewable energy sources.

Graphics courtesy of The New York Times

In the automotive industry, electric vehicles have become the fastest-growing segment by far, growing almost 50% year over year. Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, has committed America’s largest automaker to selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035 and expects continued exponential growth for the EV market.

At YouSolar, we have every reason to believe that battery-based independent power systems will follow the same path of exponential growth.