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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.
The growth of photovoltaics in electricity markets and in research laboratories brings exciting challenges in scaling-up innovative technologies and deploying them for a variety of applications.
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.
Cities appear to be progressing in leaps and bounds towards a renewable energy world, but their actions may soon start to lead to increasing friction with higher levels of governance.
Electric motors are replacing combustion engines in vehicles thanks to the tremendous progress in battery development, but issues remain in navigating transportation with battery technologies.
Professor M Stanley Whittingham is a pioneering researcher in the development of lithium-ion batteries at Binghamton University and Kent Snyder leads battery research and development at Ford Motor Company. Nature Energy caught up with both during the Nature Conference on Materials Electrochemistry: Fundamentals and Applications held in China in January 2018.
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.
