Reviews & Analysis

This Perspective suggests that the combined influence of trends toward increasing house size and decreasing household size have important implications for energy consumption per capita. This points to new avenues for research and policy related to lifestyle expectations and housing development.

Moving to more renewable energy generation will require more flexible electricity use. Now, research shows that flexibility products like time of use rates can hit some groups harder than others, with some vulnerable groups facing disproportionately negative financial and health impacts. However, the picture is by no means simple.

The elderly and those with disabilities face greater increases in electricity bills and worse health outcomes under some time-of-use electricity rates. This suggests that vulnerable groups should be considered separately in time-of-use rate design, and future rate designs should be tested to ensure that they do not increase hardship.

Developing high capacity yet stable cathodes is key to advancing Li-ion battery technologies. Now, a new metal oxide cathode that is rich in Li with a gradient in Li concentration is shown to be stable to O₂ release leading to long cycle life and high capacity.

Metal–organic frameworks are promising adsorbents for CO₂ capture from flue gas, but many perform poorly when exposed to flue gas containing water. Now, a computational screening approach identifies MOFs with preserved CO₂/N₂ selectivities in wet flue gas and experiments confirm their outstanding CO₂ capture performance.

While a government commission recently proposed to phase out coal in Germany by 2038, voters would prefer a phase-out by 2025. Policymakers may underestimate public willingness to support an expedited transition away from high-carbon sources of energy.

Industrial hydrocarbon conversions often use catalysts with ill-defined active metal sites, which may hamper rational improvement. This Perspective explores how surface organometallic chemistry can allow the design of catalysts with more well-defined active sites for the production of energy carriers.

Adoption of photovoltaic systems has been thought of in some countries as a choice influenced by political preferences. In the US, this polarization may be even stronger due to political polarization around climate change. Now, research shows that photovoltaic adopters can be found in both parties and they are politically active.

Energy transitions might require not only changes in fuel mix, but also consumption reduction. Using surveys of behaviour and basic human needs, new research estimates the minimum energy required for maintaining a decent living standard.

Many electricity markets authorize capacity payments to generators to secure sufficient supply, unintentionally favouring peaking technologies like oil and gas. New approaches are needed to ensure reliability without discouraging investment in low-carbon resources such as solar, wind and nuclear.

Obtaining simultaneously high power conversion efficiency and long-term stability in organic blend/quantum dot solar cells is considered a tough challenge. Now, realization of a hybrid architecture that exploits the addition of a small molecule brings researchers a step closer to overcoming it.

Capacity markets are meant to ensure adequate generation capacity to avoid electricity shortages without benefitting specific technologies. Now, research shows that by minimizing investment risks over operating risks, these markets favour fossil fuels over renewable energy unless other complementary instruments are introduced.

The performance of lithium–sulfur batteries is intimately tied to electrode porosity. Now, an in-depth investigation shows that optimizing the porosity enhances the achievable energy density of lithium–sulfur batteries.

Financing costs for renewable energy technologies have decreased substantially over the past 18 years, helping make renewables more cost competitive. Leveraging the effect of financial learning and continuing the policies that facilitated favourable financing conditions are key for greater renewable energy adoption in the future.

Hotel guests changed their resource-use behaviour when they received feedback on their consumption in real time, even though they did not know that they were part of a study and had no financial incentives. Behavioural interventions provided by digital technologies are a scalable and cost-effective policy instrument for fostering resource conservation.

New network tariffs designed to recover grid operating costs can introduce up to a 500% increase in charges for some households. A transition from volumetric to peak-load-based tariffs will require targeted policy measures such as clear price signals, information about household electricity consumption and temporary compensation or mitigation mechanisms.

Hardware costs, cost of labour, favourable cost of capital, low taxes and low, but positive, profit margins all contributed to lowering the price of utility solar power in the Middle East. These prices and policies can be replicated elsewhere without direct subsidies and prices will continue to reduce in the future.

In the development of Li metal solid-state batteries, understanding the mechanism that governs fundamental processes such as Li stripping and plating is pivotal. Now, researchers uncover a pressure dependence on Li stripping and higher pressures are suggested for faster discharging.

Coal power generation in China is among the major causes of the country’s heavily polluted air. Researchers now use comprehensive emissions monitoring data to show that many plants report compliance with new ultra-low emissions standards earlier than required, substantially reducing the pollution they emit.

Copper-doped cadmium telluride thin-film solar cells have high efficiency, but limited hole density and Cu diffusion allow little room for further improvements in device performance. Now, arsenic-doped cadmium telluride thin films show enhanced hole density and lower dopant diffusivity leading to 20.8%-efficient solar cells.