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Low-income solar adopters are more likely to refer others to a fully subsidized solar programme when referral rewards are combined with an appeal to reciprocity and a simplified referral process, leading to five times as many solar contracts as when referral rewards are used alone. The findings highlight behavioural science strategies that administrators of low-income energy assistance programmes can use to cost-effectively accelerate programme uptake.
Market-based measures are being discussed at the International Maritime Organization as a means to decarbonize shipping. This study estimates the required level of carbon pricing to close the conventional and alternative marine bunker fuels price gap.
Preparing the electric grid to withstand adverse impacts from climate change will require significant investments. New research focused on wildfire risk mitigation in California demonstrates that how the cost of such investments is shared has important implications for affordability and equity in electricity access.
The products of high rate, selective and stable electrochemical CO2 reduction are often restricted to molecules containing one or two carbon atoms, limiting market potential. Now, a catalyst with ionomer-coated surface-modified nanoparticles enables stable CO2 conversion to a three-carbon product with 90% Faradaic efficiency at high reaction rates.
The cost of solar photovoltaics has declined over the past two decades, but the driving mechanisms are not fully understood. Now, researchers examine the role of hardware and non-hardware features in cost reduction of photovoltaics and develop a model that could be used to understand cost reductions for other energy technologies.
Few non-copper catalysts have been observed to produce appreciable amounts of propane—a useful fuel—by electrochemical reduction of CO2. New research shows that ionomer-coated imidazolium-functionalized Mo3P nanoparticles produce propane with high activity and selectivity.
Hardware and non-hardware features affect the cost of technologies but evolve in different ways over time. Klemun et al. build a model to account for such evolution and analyse the case of photovoltaics.
Photocatalytically activating methane produces molecules that can be further transformed into fuels and chemicals, but methane’s inert nature makes this challenging. Here Li et al. use a rapid sputtering approach to fabricate a Au/TiO2 photocatalyst with high performance for oxidative coupling of methane.
It has been difficult for organic redox flow batteries to simultaneously achieve high capacity and long cycle life. Now, a catholyte design is shown to have the potential to overcome these challenges.
As the stability of organic and perovskite solar cells improves, accelerated ageing methods become increasingly essential to elucidate their long-term degradation mechanisms and to predict their real-world operational lifetimes. By effectively applying these underutilized tests, emerging photovoltaic technologies can be de-risked and their time to market can be expedited.
Europe’s approach to energy security has been historically split between the East and West. Given the rapidly evolving geopolitical energy security landscape on the continent, we argue that a comprehensive and shared approach to energy security — which incorporates hard security considerations — is needed.
Reducing critical materials such as indium and silver is of high importance for photovoltaics. Yu et al. demonstrate a certified 25.94% efficiency silicon heterojunction solar cell replacing part of indium-based electrodes with undoped tin oxide and using copper for contacts.
Extreme weather conditions threaten electricity infrastructure. A new study finds that lower-income communities in California have fewer power distribution lines undergrounded and more vulnerable overhead lines and poles in their neighbourhoods.
Understanding drivers of home energy efficiency efforts is important for slowing climate change and managing energy costs. A study now combines open-ended survey questions with natural language processing to find that renovations are typically motivated by factors like comfort and environmental concerns, and that energy efficiency investments are often delayed until renovations are needed.