U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index: California in the First Place, Followed by Massachusetts

Clean Edge’s 2017 U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index ranks the clean-tech activities of all 50 states and the United States’ 50 largest metropolitan areas from electric vehicles, renewables initiatives, policy to investments. The 2017 index shows that states and cities were playing an exceptionally large role in the development of clean energy and transportation. California once again is the No.1 the ranking of the Clean Tech Leadership Index, winning and staying the first place consecutively in all eight years of the index existence. Representing the head start of solar energy in the United States, California received more than 27,000-gigawatt hours of utility-scale and distributed solar power alone in 2016. California’s solar production is five times the amount generated in Arizona, which holds the second place in solar energy production. California’s solar power could light up more than four million homes for a year. As the most populous state, California has than 1.2 million registered electric and hybrid vehicles, and collect more than $9.5 billion in clean-tech venture capital in the last three years. Massachusetts continues its second-place ranking for the fifth year in a row, leading in Financial Capital, Policy and Green Buildings. The Bay State finished first in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s (ACEEE) most recent state efficiency scorecard, with the second-most kilowatt-hours (kWh) saved per person through utility efficiency programs. The top ten states are California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, Hawaii. Key report findings: * Iowa, South Dakota, and Kansas get 30% or more of their total in-state generation from utility-scale wind * In 2016, wind and solar power represented 61 percent of all new electricity generating capacity installed in the U.S. * Clean energy represents a total of 2.4 million jobs nationwide. Top states winning clean energy jobs are Vermont, Rhode Island, Utah, Michigan, Oregon, and Massachusetts.   To learn more, please visit: https://cleanedge.com/reports/2017-US-Clean-Tech-Leadership-Index