Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has called for a dramatic national shift to energy sources such as solar and wind, setting the goal of generating enough clean renewable energy to power every US home within her first term in office.

Ms Clinton, the front-runner for her party's 2016 presidential nomination, also pledged to have more than half a billion solar panels installed nationwide within four years of taking office.

"I want more wind, more solar, more advanced bio-fuels, more energy efficiency," Ms Clinton said at a rally on Sunday in Ames, Iowa.

"And I've got to tell you, people who argue against this are just not paying attention."

The two goals were the first elements of what Ms Clinton said would be a comprehensive climate change agenda to be released over the next few months.

Ms Clinton's goals served as a response to Democratic presidential rival senator Bernie Sanders' calls for swift action on climate change, as well as environmental activists who are anxious to see Ms Clinton spell out details of a climate plan.

Her campaign said the goals would lead to a 700 per cent increase in the nation's installed solar capacity from current levels, and eventually could generate at least one-third of all electricity from renewable sources.

Ms Clinton's plans also call for extending federal clean energy tax incentives and making them more cost effective.

In Ames, Ms Clinton said she would continue the wind production tax credit and recalibrate other tax incentives that are "too heavily weighted ... toward fossil fuels".

Ms Clinton also said she would fight efforts to roll back president Barack Obama's executive actions to curb carbon emissions from power plants, and criticised Republicans who are reluctant to say climate change is a man-made phenomenon.

"They will answer any question about climate change by saying: 'I'm not a scientist'," she said.

"Well, I'm not a scientist either. I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain and I know we're facing a huge problem."

Reuters