Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ

We use energy all the time, from powering our buildings and electronic devices, to transportation and industrial processes. For the past two hundred years, energy needs have largely been met by fossil fuels, burning coal and gas to generate electricity, and combusting oil in vehicle engines. This energy system ultimately depends on finite resources. Interest is growing in diversifying the energy mix to make energy more affordable and locally resilient. Fossil fuels remain convenient, widely available, and historically one of the cheapest sources of energy, but looking to the future, a mixture of energy sources is essential.Ìý

As demand for energy continues to grow, a broad set of energy sources will be needed. Modern incoming sources must be cheap and readily available, as energy is now a vital foundation for a good standard of living.Ìý

Solar and wind energy can already provide cost-competitive alternatives to fossil fuels in many regions. Renewable sources are generally less energy-dense: oil, coal, and gas benefit from millions of years of heat and pressure within the Earth’s crust, concentrating energy into a compact form, while solar and wind installations require more space to generate comparable output. For many applications this is not a limiting factor. Solar panels can go on rooftops, wind turbines on hills or offshore. For others, such as transport, lower energy density remains a real engineering challenge. As always, the drive for efficiency and performance is critical, if the solar panels and wind turbines can generate electricity more effectively, energy costs drop.Ìý

Here are just some of the ways in which several of the Technology Domains are making advances in this Impact Area:

Fusion Power

• Development of theoretical models and understanding of plasmas and reactor geometries for fusion reactions.

Solar Power

• Analyses of solar panel installations in different locations around the globe and the local impact of these instillations.
• Development of new photovoltaic materials for converting solar energy to electricity.
• Detailed characterization of photovoltaic materials, enhancing understanding to inform future materials design.
• Development of new device structures, such as tandem silicon-perovskite cells, to enhance efficiency and affordability.
• Evaluation of the robustness and reliability of new solar cell technologies.
• Evaluation of how to best integrate solar power into the power grid.
• Analysis of how best to recycle and reuse solar panels at their end-of-life, and development of new designs to make them easier to repair and decommission.

Wind Power

• Development of more efficient turbine designs.
• Development of control systems to improve the efficiency of existing turbines.
• Development of computational simulations to inform the location of wind farms and turbine installation locations.
• Evaluation of how best to integrate wind power into the power grid.