Comment

Smart in-home devices, if integrated with the capability to transact energy with one another and with the electric grid, can offer a disruptive solution to managing energy supply and demand. Such transactive energy networks could turn homes from passive energy consumers into intelligent, active energy storage and service providers for the future grid.

The need to include gender in energy policy, practice and research is largely accepted. However, when research that merely disaggregates by sex is used to inform energy efficiency initiatives, it often reproduces stereotypical understandings of sex differences, which can harm rather than promote gender equality.

The photovoltaics industry has grown remarkably in recent decades but as it has grown, quality assurance during the manufacturing and installation processes has become increasingly important. There is often a cultural divide between those who develop and those who implement the designs, motivating partnering of these efforts.

In Aesop’s fable, a swift hare races with a deliberate tortoise. In the end, the tortoise wins by taking a slow and steady approach. We argue that, given the economic constraints on US deployment of nuclear power, a ‘tortoise strategy’ is more prudent for US government nuclear R&D efforts.

The lack of electrification in parts of the world leaves many healthcare facilities with inadequate power provision for even basic services. Pilot projects show that solar power can overcome this but, to expand further, more careful trials measuring health outcomes and better integration of energy and health policy are required.

Fuel poverty is a highly-complex social problem that is currently defined in technical and economic terms that prioritize energy performance measures as solutions. Yet considering the wider societal aspects of the condition demonstrates how adopting dynamic risk-based metrics can drive tailored and holistic folk-first outcomes.

The ability to collect fine-grained energy data from smart meters has benefits for utilities and consumers. However, a proactive approach to data privacy is necessary to maximize the potential of these data to support low-carbon energy systems and innovative business models.

Low photovoltaic module costs imply that increasing the energy yield per module area is now a priority. We argue that modules harvesting sunlight from both sides will strongly penetrate the market but that more field data, better simulation tools and international measurement standards are needed to overcome perceived investment risks.

Recent developments in photovoltaic technologies enable stimulating architectural integration into building façades and rooftops. Upcoming policies and a better coordination of all stakeholders will transform how we approach building-integrated photovoltaics and should lead to strong deployment.

Nation states need to incentivize negative emissions technologies if they are to take the decarbonization of whole energy systems seriously. This incentivization must account for public values and interests in relation to which technologies to incentivize, how they should be incentivized and how they should be governed once incentivized.

Most scenarios to meet the Paris Agreement require negative emissions technologies. The EU has assumed a global leadership role in mitigation action and low-carbon energy technology development and deployment, but carbon dioxide removal presents a serious challenge to its low-carbon policy paradigm and experience.

Although nearly all 2 °C scenarios use negative CO₂ emission technologies, only relatively small investments are being made in them, and concerns are being raised regarding their large-scale use. If no explicit policy decisions are taken soon, however, their use will simply be forced on us to meet the Paris climate targets.

President Trump has proposed severe cuts to US government spending on energy research, development and demonstration, but Congress has the ‘power of the purse’ and can rescue US energy innovation. If serious cuts are enacted, the pace of innovation will slow, harming the economy, energy security and global environmental quality.

The Trump administration's domestic plans would have curtailed the nation's climate action even if it had stayed in the Paris Agreement. Yet, the decision to leave the agreement undermines US international energy and climate leadership and the prospects of ramping up global climate policy ambition.

The structure of active sites of enzymes involved in bioenergetic processes can inspire design of active, stable and cost-effective catalysts for renewable-energy technologies. For these materials to reach maturity, the benefits of bioinspired systems must be combined with practical technological requirements.

The UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 aims to deliver affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Tracking progress towards the targets under this goal can spur better energy statistics and data gathering capacity, and will require new indicators that also consider the interplay with other goals.

Beyond-intercalation batteries promise a step-change in energy storage compared to intercalation-based lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. However, only performance metrics that include all cell components and operation parameters can tell whether a true advance over intercalation batteries has been achieved.

Technological innovation, often induced by national and subnational policies, can be a key driver of global climate and energy policy ambition and action. A better understanding of the technology–politics feedback link can help to further increase ambitions.

Smart technologies in the energy sector could benefit from social science research — and vice versa.

Private sector investments in African power generation play an increasingly important role in addressing the continent's electricity supply shortages. Our analysis of investment trends in sub-Saharan Africa reveals some key success factors.