Renewable Energy Research In Science

India needs to add ~46 GW of renewable capacity every year through 2030 to hit its 500 GW target. It added 45 GW of solar in FY2026. So the math works, as long as you diversify from utility-scale parks that take 18–24 months from bid to synchronisation. The faster path runs through distributed energy: rooftop solar, Commerical and Industrial open access, agricultural pumps, behind-the-meter storage. India installed 8.7 GW of rooftop solar in FY2026 alone — a 69% year-on-year jump. Open access solar crossed 30 GW cumulative. A 500 kW rooftop system commissions in 60–90 days. A 5 MW C&I open access project in under six months. These aren't niche numbers anymore. But there's a bottleneck that doesn't get enough attention: working capital. Solar EPCs — especially SMEs — routinely win projects they can't fully fund through procurement. Traditional bank credit is slow, collateral-heavy, and sized for larger tickets. The result: equipment delays, missed milestones, compressed margins. This is exactly where Odyssey Energy Solutions has built something interesting. Their supply chain credit model — proven across Africa and Latin America — is now live in India. Credit without collateral, milestone-aligned repayment, embedded directly into the procurement workflow. An EPC can place a module order with 100% upfront payment to the supplier, secure better pricing, and repay as customer milestones arrive. One case: a leading Indian EPC with 700+ MW in its order book used Odyssey's platform to execute nearly 200 MW across four states — Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh — without straining working capital. India doesn't lack solar resource, manufacturing capacity, or demand. Module production jumped from 38 GW to 74 GW in a single fiscal year. The constraint is deployment velocity — and deployment velocity is a financing problem as much as a policy problem. Companies solving the financing layer for distributed energy in India are working on something structurally important. Worth watching. #India #SolarEnergy #DistributedEnergy #CleanEnergy #EnergyTransition #RenewableEnergy #ProjectFinance

Norway Converts Deep Ocean Pressure Into Electricity Using Subsea Energy Vaults Norwegian researchers have completed successful trials of a revolutionary underwater energy storage system that uses deep-sea pressure to generate power on demand — offering a clean alternative to batteries in coastal grids. Installed off the coast of Bergen, the system consists of massive hollow spheres anchored 400 meters below the surface, which can store and release energy using water and gravity alone. The process is mechanically simple but incredibly effective. When surplus wind or hydro power is available, electricity is used to pump water out of the spheres against immense ocean pressure. When energy is needed later, valves open and water rushes back in, spinning turbines to generate electricity — just like a hydro dam, but inverted and underwater. The pilot system achieved a round-trip efficiency of 80% during six months of continuous cycling. Because the surrounding water pressure is so high, the system can store large amounts of energy in a small volume — making it ideal for islands, offshore wind farms, or areas with unstable grids. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, this subsea system is made of concrete and steel, doesn’t degrade with use, and poses no fire or chemical risk. It’s also invisible — a critical feature for environmentally sensitive marine zones. Norway’s invention turns the crushing power of the deep ocean into a silent, emission-free energy reservoir — a hidden battery beneath the waves.

Almost half of Americans (45%) now expect to see catastrophic climate impacts within their own lifetimes according to a new YouGov survey. That’s no longer a scientific forecast; it’s a mainstream reality check. What’s even more telling is that the "Climate Perception Gap" is closing in the places we’d least expect. The latest AEF survey shows that in states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Indiana, the push for solutions is decoupling from political identity. In fact, 83% of voters in these key states, including 75% of Trump supporters, now view solar as a strategic necessity for U.S. energy dominance. This represents a fundamental shift in the sustainability landscape: 🏠 Survivalism is the new Sustainability. People aren't just worried about melting ice caps; they are worried about their own homes and local economies. Climate change has become personal, local, and immediate. ⚡ The "Solution Consensus." Even among those who might disagree on the cause of climate change, there is an overwhelming consensus on the cure. Clean energy is now being framed as national security, economic competition with China, and a way to lower utility bills. 💸 Perception Drives Pressure. When 45% of the public expects a disaster, "business-as-usual" isn't just a slow strategy, it’s a fiduciary risk. Leaders who ignore this are effectively devaluing their own assets and ignoring a massive, cross-partisan mandate for resilience. The Bottom Line: The gap between what the public fears and what leadership delivers has never been wider. Whether you're driven by environmental concern or economic dominance, the destination is the same: a cleaner, more resilient energy grid. Link to the research in the comments ⬇️ #Sustainability #CleanEnergy #RiskManagement #EnergyTransition #ClimateAction #2026Trends #EnergyDominance

A question I often get asked is won't a renewables-dominated European energy system cost more for businesses and consumers?     The answer is no. In fact, the exact opposite is true.     Ørsted published new research this week at WindEurope in Madrid showing that a system running on predominantly wind and solar could cut Europe's total electricity costs by up to 30% by 2040. The savings from stepping away from fossil fuels dwarf the cost of integrating renewables into the grid.     And yet a survey we ran alongside the research found that many Europeans still believe the transition is expensive. Around a third think their country is already energy self-sufficient. Not a single EU member state or the UK is. Around half of Europeans think that offshore wind is more expensive than it actually is.     That gap between perception and reality is costing us. Literally. Europe is spending billions every week on imported fossil fuels it doesn't need to.     The economics are clear. Renewables are already cheaper than legacy power sources and that gap widens towards 2040. Offshore wind in particular has strong fundamentals: winds are stronger and more consistent at sea, and a single wind farm can power millions of homes. The North Seas Investment Pact signed in Hamburg this January adds further momentum — up to 15 GW of new capacity per year from 2031.     More wind and solar means lower bills for households and businesses. It means less dependence on imports. And it means a more stable, resilient energy system for Europe.     The facts point in one direction. The question is how fast we move.     Full research here: https://lnkd.in/eVWaRnDq  

Wind and solar have produced more than a third of Brazil's electricity for the first time – and it’s reshaping how the power system works. Brazil has long relied on hydro, but hydro capacity has barely grown in the last decade (from 107 GW in 2016 to 110 GW today). As electricity demand has risen, hydro’s share of generation has steadily declined. At the same time, wind and solar have surged. Their rapid growth has outpaced demand and driven power sector emissions down. Brazil’s electricity emissions peaked in 2014 – just before wind took off and several years before solar arrived at scale. The growth in wind and solar has reduced the need for fossil generation during hydro's seasonal lows: ➡️ In mid-2021, hydro's share fell below 50% for the first month on record, triggering a 13.1 TWh spike in fossil output. ➡️ In mid-2025, hydro again dipped below 50% but this time fossil output was just 7.8 TWh, thanks to much stronger wind and solar. This marks a real shift in how Brazil’s system operates. Instead of acting as baseload, hydro is increasingly dispatched flexibly, complementing variable wind and solar and enabling far higher renewable penetration. And importantly, as wind and solar expand, hydro can be conserved during droughts – preserving water, reducing vulnerability to dry years, and strengthening system resilience. Brazil’s energy transition is well underway. Onwards and upwards! #energy #renewables #energytransition

𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞'𝐬 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐞 Climate action in Europe faces key tests in 2026, as the Financial Times rightly argues ( 👉 https://lnkd.in/ecjnARNP). The EU's carbon border tax just kicked in. Large-scale solar and wind projects are being commissioned. New disclosure rules force companies to come clean about emissions. And yet, the political narrative remains dominated by fear. Fear of voter backlash. Fear that ambitious climate policy is electoral suicide. That fear is based on a systematic misperception of what citizens actually want. Research published this week ( 👉 https://lnkd.in/eYth6q26 ) shows UK MPs think only 16% of their constituents support local renewable energy projects. The actual figure? 73%. That is not a small error. That is politicians living in a parallel universe. This aligns with a little older academic research on Belgian politicians ( 👉 https://lnkd.in/eb9pADUV), who consistently overestimate how right-wing their voters are by an average of 13 percentage points. On banning polluting cars from cities, they underestimated public support by 12 points. On every left-wing policy proposal tested, politicians assumed less support than actually existed. The pattern holds across all parties. Left, center, right: all suffer from the same bias. Why does this matter? Because perception shapes action. Politicians who believe voters oppose climate measures will water them down or abandon them. We are trapped in what researchers call a "spiral of silence": 𝟖𝟗% of people worldwide want stronger climate action, but most do not know they are part of a majority ( 👉 https://lnkd.in/ewaiRjRY). With the US retreating, European leadership becomes more critical. Not only for a sustainable future, but also for strategic autonomy. The technology exists. Public support is there. What is missing is political courage, based on a misreading of what citizens want. 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐲.

The current energy shock makes the case for renewables more obvious than ever. It also generates the windfall profits and public anxiety that the architects of delay reinvest into manufactured doubt. As I argued in an earlier post, our information systems are structurally vulnerable to disinformation, mostly because of economic incentives. To fix that, we should apply the "polluter pays" principle to the information environment. There is a growing body of evidence showing how legitimate concerns are deliberately amplified and distorted by private and state actors whose revenues depend on prolonging fossil fuel dependence. Last week, a WindEurope report mapped 573 accounts spreading anti-wind power disinformation across Europe: 42,000 posts reaching tens of millions. Wind projects worth billions have been delayed or cancelled, sometimes violently, on the back of false claims. A recent DeSmog / POLITICO Europe investigation uncovered a Paris PR firm running fake Facebook accounts for a gas trade group, discrediting heat pumps with fabricated stories and AI-generated images. Sometimes so clumsily that even group members began questioning whether the accounts were real. Earlier this year, Clean Creatives documented 1,217 active contracts between ad agencies and fossil fuel companies in 2025. EUvsDisinfo and NATO have analysed how Russia, whose revenues remain tied to fossil fuel exports, is a major driver of climate disinformation in Europe. For Europeans, the consensus is there; people are not confused. 88% support more renewables, 81% back climate neutrality by 2050 (EU Commission). But when misleading narratives are produced and distributed on an industrial scale, even informed citizens struggle to know what is true. The energy transition involves real trade-offs that can only be navigated honestly in an information environment that is not deliberately distorted. Just as individual carbon footprint is sometimes used to shift the climate burden onto people rather than systems, we now risk shifting the burden of disinformation onto individual media literacy. The problem starts with an unregulated supply chain of falsehoods. The Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, signed by 27 countries at COP30, provides a framework. Governments and the private sector must now act on it. Funding independent journalism; taxing windfall profits that fund delay; and regulating the intermediaries such as PR firms, platforms, even media outlets when they produce and distribute false narratives, are essential steps to take.

They are turning wastewater treatment plants into energy-autonomous power plants. 💩➡️🔋 Wastewater treatment is 0 sexy yet extremely important. And it has a lot of issues… ↳ 80% of global wastewater goes untreated  ↳ Sewage treatment causes 4% of global emissions  ↳ Treatment plants consume enormous amounts of energy ↳ Disposal costs climbing like crazy (already €230+ per tonne in EU) So Shit2Power figured out a way to turn all the energy captured in sewage sludge into power! And this is why their technology is awesome: 𝟭. 𝗥��𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 🔥💧 Achieving true energy self-sufficiency for sewage treatment: • Sewage sludge -> energy-rich gas at 850°C -> heat and electricity • Valuable phosphorus-rich ash obtained as by-product 𝟮. 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 📊💪 Their tech minimizes leftover waste A LOT: • 90% sludge volume reduction vs. traditional methods' 50%. • This drastically slashes disposal costs. 𝟯. 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 🌍🚀 Their containers plug into traditional plants and help them achieve: • 30% lower energy costs and zero external energy dependence. • On-site processing (eliminates massive transport costs and emissions). • Super easy phosphorus recovery (soon required by EU). They're targeting municipalities across Europe as strict new EU laws kick in. Despite being only 2 years old they've already secured €780K in public funding alone and built their first container plant. If you could ask the Shit2Power team one question about their tech/industry, what would it be? – If this company sounds interesting to you 👇 🗞️ Grab my 5 min newsletter issue about them: https://lnkd.in/eu6kTqSy

Latest IEA report: #NetZero scenario. “Tripling global installed renewables capacity to 11 000 gigawatts by 2030 provides the largest emissions reductions to 2030 in the NZE Scenario. Renewable electricity sources, in particular solar PV and wind, are widely available, well understood, and often rapidly deployable and cost effective. Current policy settings already put advanced economies and China on track to achieve 85% of their contribution to this global goal, but stronger policies and international support are required in other emerging market and developing economies. For all countries, speeding up permitting, extending and modernising electricity grids, addressing supply chain bottlenecks, and securely integrating variable renewables are critical. Doubling the annual rate of energy intensity improvement by 2030 in the NZE Scenario saves the energy equivalent of all oil consumption in road transport today, reduces emissions, boosts energy security and improves affordability. Although the mix of priorities will differ by country, at the global level energy intensity improvements stem from three equally important actions: improving the technical efficiency of equipment such as electric motors and air conditioners; switching to more efficient fuels, in particular electricity, and clean cooking solutions in low-income countries; and using energy and materials more efficiently. These two actions reduce fossil fuel demand, enabling continued adherence to a key milestone of our 2021 report: an immediate end to new approvals of unabated coal plants.”

Avoiding methane emissions to the atmosphere by capturing biogas from the decomposition of palm waste is the easiest way for our neighbours to achieve net-zero. "Some of the current practices that have achieved significant outcomes are the use of combined heat and power systems and biogas capture from POME. The MSPO certification requirements coupled with industry best practices have resulted in 68.8% of the industry’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction by replacing fossil fuels and avoiding methane emissions. POME is a highly acidic but nutrient-rich wastewater, which emits methane gas that can be harnessed to generate energy. The energy is used to either power operations in remote mills or sold to the grid. Other organic waste from plantations like fronds, palm tree trunks and EFB are used as mulch and fertiliser for healthier soil. Waste from palm oil mills like palm mesocarp fibre, palm kernel cake and palm kernel shells are burned in controlled facilities to generate energy, thus reducing the use of fossil fuels. Many of the emerging technologies introduced in the study involve more effective use of EFB. The current industry practice is to return EFB to plantations as mulching materials, or to convert them into biofertiliser or animal feed. Some advanced power plants might be able to use EFB as feedstock. An emerging solution identified in the report is to convert EFB into briquettes or pellets, which can be used to generate renewable energy. Another is to convert EFB into biochar via pyrolysis, which is where organic matter is heated in a stable environment without oxygen. The resulting product is a black solid called biochar that can be used for soil aeration as well as water retention in soil, improving its quality and also enhancing carbon storage in soil, contributing to long-term sequestration. Moreover, EFB can be used in gasification technologies to produce synthetic gas, which in turn is used for green power generation. Gasification is a process where feedstock, EFB in this case, is exposed to high temperatures without actual fire, with minimal oxygen and steam. EFB can also be fermented to obtain bioethanol, which has many uses across industries." https://lnkd.in/gweCFtGK