The use of fossil fuels is a primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, and considered a culprit for global warming. Aiming for carbon neutrality — achieving a balance between emitting and absorbing carbon, many countries are looking into new energy solutions to cut carbon emissions. With increasing demands for low-carbon technologies, what are the global patterns of research growth in new energy? And what are some promising technologies? A collaborative report seeks to explore into these questions using bibliometric analysis. 

The project is a joint effort by CASISD, CAS’s Wuhan Documentation and Information centre and Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, along with Springer Nature. We used the Dimensions data from Digital Science for bibliometric and patent analysis to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of China’s new energy technology research, and also conducted interviews with experts in key technology areas for their insights into opportunities and challenges for developing these new energy technologies.

By assessing scientific publication in renewable energy, including solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy, as well as new energy system technologies, such as advanced nuclear energy, hydrogen, energy storage and energy internet, we see accelerated growth of new energy research in the recent decade. Particularly, among the eight new energy fields analyzed, solar energy, energy storage and hydrogen have the largest research output in the period of 2015-2019, demonstrating the focus on these fields. For fields with more than 10,000 publications in the past five years, research on energy storage, hydrogen and energy internet sees the fastest growth.  

For full report in English 

www.nature.com/collections/casisd 

For full report in Chinese 

http://www.naturechina.com/pdf?file=/public/upload/pdf/2021/03/13/604c1b5a65c5d.pdf