Solar Energy

Published since 1957, Solar Energy, the official journal of the International Solar Energy Society is devoted exclusively to the science and technology of solar energy applications. With participation encompassing 100 countries, ISES serves as a center for information on research and development in solar energy utilization. Through its publications and its sponsorship of technical conferences, the Society provides a world forum for the active consideration of solar energy. Solar Energy welcomes manuscripts presenting information on any aspect of solar energy measurement, research, development, application, or policy.

Solar Energy welcomes manuscripts presenting information not previously published in journals on any aspect of solar energy research, development, application, measurement or policy. The term "solar energy" in this context includes the indirect uses such as wind energy and biomass. Because of the international character of Solar Energy, articles that deal solely with the solar radiation or wind data base of a specific country are not normally considered suitable for Solar Energy. Submitted manuscripts may take the form of reports of original studies or reviews of significant prior work in a given area. All manuscripts are subject to reviews to assure accuracy, clarity, and long-term value.

Solar Energy covers topics such as:

  • Solar Buildings
  • Solar Thermal Energy Conversion
  • Photovoltaic Systems
  • Solar Thermal Power Plants
  • Materials, Optics, Energy Storage
  • Solar Chemistry
  • Resources and Radiation
  • Economics and Policy

 

Journal Performance:

CiteScore: 13.1

Impact Factor: 7.188

 

Solar Energy Audience: Researchers, academics, architects and technicians involved in the research, design, construction and utilisation of photovoltaics and solar energy systems.

ISES Members Discount on Solar Energy Journal Subscription

Solar Energy Journal - paper version (18 issues/year) € 55
Solar Energy Online* - electronic version (18 issues/year) € 48

*not available for Corporate members

The online version includes access to 18 regular volumes for the current year and access to back files up to 4 years from start of subscription, plus access to full archive of abstracts.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/solar-energy

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For libraries, the Journal is available directly from the publisher (journals.elsevier.com/solar-energy/). Prices vary from region to region.

All subscriptions are for personal use only and may not be shared or placed in institutional or university libraries or other libraries, nor may any personal subscriptions be used for library purposes.

Solar Energy Call for Papers

Advances in Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP): Special Issue on Heliostat Technologies

Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) technologies have been commercially employed over 20 countries in the world, with a total installation of about 7.5 GW-e. When compared with other non-flexible renewable technologies, CSP offers valuable dispatchability to the grid and general energy sector, when combined with naturally coupled thermal energy storage systems. In order to improve the commercial competitiveness of CSP, the cutting-edge research and development (RD) are needed to further improve its cost, performance and commercial readiness. In particular, heliostat-based CSP systems can offer immense potential to provide low-cost, dispatchable renewable thermal and electrical energy to help achieve 100% decarbonized energy infrastructure for a given country. Heliostats are a major determinant of both capital cost and performance of state-of-the-art commercial molten salt towers and Generation 3 CSP systems. As part of the global efforts, in 2021 the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) launched the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon), a five-year initiative to advance heliostat technologies.

The goal of the special issue is to share the state-of-the-art research in this fascinating field that will set the stage for guiding future research activities. Building on the vision and challenges to be addressed for future-generation heliostat technologies (see the Perspective article https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2023.111917), we aim to present a collection of papers reporting the most recent accomplishments in the field. We will give preference to works focusing on metrology, standards, components, controls, system analysis and efforts on resources, training and education for workforce expansion. The publications in this Special Issue will improve understanding of this emerging technical topic and attract more researchers for valuable contribution of the growing CSP community.

  • Submissions close: 1 February 2025

Solar-to-X Technologies for Sustainable Energy Solutions

Solar Energy journal is pleased to announce a special issue focusing on Solar-to-X Technologies, pivotal to driving the next generation of sustainable energy solutions. We invite researchers, scientists, and engineers from academia, industry, national laboratories and policy agencies to submit original research articles, reviews, and case studies that address innovative advancements, challenges, and applications of solar-to-X technologies.

About the Theme: The concept of "Solar-to-X" refers to the conversion of solar energy into various valuable products beyond traditional electricity generation. This includes the transformation of solar energy into fuels, chemicals, thermal energy, hydrogen, and other forms of energy carriers. With the increasing demand for clean and sustainable energy, solar-to-X technologies are emerging as a cornerstone in the global effort to decarbonize energy systems.

Scope of the Special Issue: This special issue aims to explore the full spectrum of solar-to-X technologies and their applications, encompassing both theoretical advancements and practical implementations. Both photon-based and thermal-based solar energy technologies are of interest.

  • Submissions close: 1 June 2025

Solar Energy Journal Awards

Best Paper Award:

This award was initiated in 1981, at that time it was called the Löf/Duffie Best Paper Award, and since 2007 it has been called the "Solar Energy Journal Best Paper Award". Every two years, the award is presented to authors of papers considered to be outstanding contributions published by Solar Energy. The award is presented to papers that demonstrate significant pioneering contributions to the solar energy literature, for innovative concepts or approaches, and whose quality and presentation have a lasting impact. The papers chosen for this award are selected by the Editor-in-Chief, Subject Area Editors and Associate Editors of the Solar Energy Journal.  The award consists of a certificate and a small cash prize funded by Elsevier.

Best Paper Awards are presented in the categories of:

  • Solar Heating and Cooling, Buildings and Other
  • Photovoltaics
  • Resources and Meteorology
  • Solar Environmental, Photocatalytic, and New Areas
  • Concentrating Solar Power and High Temperature Processes

 

Associate Editor of the Year Award:

Initiated in 2023, this award honours the dedication and commitment of the Associate Editors to promoting the Journal and ensuring the high quality of the articles published. The Journal further recognizes that overseeing the scientific review process in a timely manner takes significant effort and coordination. The award includes a certificate and the opportunity for the awardee to have one peer-reviewed article published in Solar Energy open access for 6 months free of charge. The Associate Editor(s) of the Year is/are selected by the Editor-in-Chief based on nominations received from the Subject Area Editors.

Best Paper Awards 2023

PV Cells and Cell Physics

  • Stable and efficient Sb2Se3 solar cells with solution-processed NiOx hole-transport layer by Liping Guo, S. N. Vijayaraghavan, Xiaomeng Duan, Harigovind G. Menon, Jacob Wall, Lingyan Kong, Subhadra Gupta, Lin Li, Feng Yan - Solar Energy, Volume 218, 2021, 525-531 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2021.02.063

 

Solar Heating & Cooling, Buildings

  • Improving the performance of tubular solar still integrated with drilled carbonized wood and carbon black thin film evaporation by Swellam W Sharshir, AW Kandeal, Youssef M Ellakany, Ibrahem Maher, Ahmed Khalil, Ahmed Swidan, Gamal B Abdelaziz, Hany Koheil, Maher Rashad - Solar Energy, Volume 233, 2022, 504-514 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2022.01.065

 

  • Investigation of physico-mechanical, thermal properties and solar thermoregulation performance of shape-stable attapulgite based composite phase change material in foam concrete by Osman Gencel, Abid Ustaoglu, Ahmet Benli, Gökhan Hekimoğlu, Ahmet Sarı, Ertugrul Erdogmus, Mucahit Sutcu, Gökhan Kaplan, Oguzhan Yavuz Bayraktar - Solar Energy, Volume 236, 2022, 51-62 - http://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2022.02.042

 

CSP & Photochemistry

  • A feasibility study on the application of mesh grids for heliostat wind load reduction by Matthew J. Emes, Azadeh Jafari, Maziar Arjomandi - Solar Energy, Volume 240, 2022, 121-130 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2022.05.033

 

Solar Resources

  • IrradianceNet: Spatiotemporal deep learning model for satellite-derived solar irradiance short-term forecasting by Andreas H Nielsen, Alexandros Iosifidis, Henrik Karstoft - Solar Energy, Volume 228, 2021, 659-669 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2021.09.073

 

Systems Integration

  • Modeling, testing, and mitigation of electromagnetic pulse on PV systems by Wei Qiu, Liang Zhang, He Yin, Lawrence C Markel, Dahan Liao, Ben W McConnell, Yilu Liu - Solar Energy, Volume 264, 2023, 112010 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2023.112010

 

  • Techno-economic potential and perspectives of floating photovoltaics in Europe by Leonardo Micheli, Diego L Talavera, Giuseppe Marco Tina, Florencia Almonacid, Eduardo F Fernández - Solar Energy, Volume 243, 2022, 203-214 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2022.07.042

Associate Editors of the Year 2023

  • Solar Heating/ Cooling and Buildings - Dr. Anna Laura Pisello (Italy)

Dr. Pisello is an associate professor of environmental applied physics at University of Perugia, Italy where she founded the Environmental Applied Physics Lab. She has been a visiting research associate at Princeton University (NJ), Columbia University (NY), Virginia Tech (Virginia) and City University of New York.

She is the author of more than 150 international refereed journal publications and several patents about microclimate monitoring systems, new materials for radiative cooling and photoluminescence. Dr Pisello has won several international academic awards and European projects under the framework of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe program including one European Research Council grant about radiative cooling for urban heat mitigation, as the first and only Italian scientist in the field of Environmental/Industrial Applied Physics. She is an associate editor of Solar Energy (Elsevier), editor of Energy and Buildings (Elsevier) and Nature Scientific Reports, among others.

 

  • Photovoltaic Cells and Cell Physics - Dr. Lingamallu Giribabu (India)

Dr. Giribabu is a Senior Scientist at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical technology (IICT), Hyderabad, India, and a Professor at the Academy of Scientific and Innovation Research (AcSIR).

His expertise is in the design and development of low-cost materials that include sensitizers, redox couples, electrode materials, semi-conducting metal oxides, and hole transport materials for dye-sensitized solar cells and perovskite solar cells. His group also investigates donor-acceptor systems-based pigment molecules for bio-mimicking of natural photosynthesis, non-linear optical properties as well as sensitizers for photodynamic therapy. He is the recipient of several awards including the Materials Research Society award, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Fellow of the Luminescence Society of India. He has published over 250 research articles, is an inventor on 7 patents and has published six book chapters.

 

  • Concentrating Solar Power and High Temperature Processes - Dr. Robert Pitz-Paal (Germany)

Dr. Pitz-Paal is one of the two directors of DLR Solar Research Institute, the largest research institution in Germany working in the field of concentrating solar technologies. This position is jointly assigned with a professorship at Aachen University. 

His main research areas are the technical analysis and optimization of concentrating solar power systems for generating electricity and producing fuel. Many innovations developed in his institute can be found today in commercial solar thermal power plants. Dr Pitz-Paal has serves as associate editor the Journal of Solar Energy and served as the chairman of the SolarPACES technology Cooperation Programme of the IEA form 2017 -21. He is also member of the board of the German Industry Association of CSP (DeutscheCSP) and of the European Industry Association ESTELA. Pitz-Paal received the Farrington-Daniels Award of the International Energy Society in 2017 and the Frank Kreith Energy Award of the ASME in 2020.

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Commenced publication 1957