Solar panels and wind turbines may be the most familiar faces of renewable energy, but the technology behind clean power is continuing to evolve.
Researchers and energy companies are working on new ways to generate electricity, store it, move it and use it more efficiently.
Some ideas are already operating commercially. Others remain experimental and may never become mainstream.
From floating solar farms and enormous offshore wind turbines to new battery technologies and electricity-producing windows, the next generation of renewable energy could look quite different from what we see today.
Floating Solar Takes Panels Onto the Water
Solar farms require space, which can create competition for land in densely populated regions.
Floating solar offers another option.
Often called floating photovoltaics or floating PV, these systems place solar panels on floating structures installed on reservoirs, lakes and other suitable bodies of water.
One advantage is obvious: the panels don’t occupy land that could otherwise be used for farming, housing or conservation.
Existing reservoirs can also already have useful infrastructure nearby, particularly when they are associated with hydroelectric power stations.
Floating solar isn’t suitable for every body of water. Systems must withstand wind, waves, changing water levels and long-term exposure to moisture.
But where conditions are appropriate, water may become an increasingly useful location for solar generation.
Solar Panels Are Becoming Part of Buildings
What if the building itself could generate electricity?
Building-integrated photovoltaics aim to make solar technology part of roofs, walls, façades and other building materials rather than installing conventional panels on top of them.
Solar glass is one particularly interesting area of development.
Researchers are working on photovoltaic materials that can allow some visible light through while also capturing part of the sun’s energy.
The long-term idea is appealing: large windows and glass-covered buildings could potentially generate some of their own electricity.
There are still trade-offs involving transparency, efficiency, durability and cost, so transparent solar isn’t about to replace ordinary windows everywhere.
But it demonstrates how solar generation may eventually become less like an added appliance and more like an ordinary building material.
Offshore Wind Turbines Are Moving Into Deeper Water
Wind turbines have become larger and more powerful, particularly offshore.
Conventional offshore wind turbines are generally fixed to the seabed. This works well in relatively shallow water but becomes increasingly difficult as water depth increases.
Floating wind turbines offer another approach.
The turbine is mounted on a floating platform that is anchored to the seabed rather than standing on a fixed foundation.
This could open deeper ocean areas with strong wind resources to renewable generation.
Floating offshore wind is still less established than conventional fixed-bottom wind, and building and maintaining enormous structures at sea remains challenging.
But it could significantly expand the areas where offshore wind power is possible.
Wave and Tidal Energy Look Beyond Wind and Sun
The oceans contain enormous amounts of energy.
Waves constantly move across the surface, while tides move huge volumes of water in predictable cycles.
Engineers have spent decades developing technologies designed to capture some of this movement and turn it into electricity.
Tidal energy has one particularly attractive characteristic: tides are highly predictable.
Wave energy is more variable but could potentially complement other renewable resources in coastal regions.
The challenge is the environment itself.
Salt water is corrosive. Storms can be extremely powerful. Equipment must survive constant movement, and underwater maintenance can be difficult and expensive.
Marine energy therefore remains far less widespread than solar, wind or hydropower.
Whether it eventually becomes a major energy source will depend largely on whether technologies can prove reliable and affordable over long operating lives.
Batteries Are Moving Beyond Lithium-Ion
Lithium-ion batteries transformed portable electronics, electric vehicles and modern energy storage.
But they aren’t the only way to store electricity.
Researchers and manufacturers are developing alternatives for different applications.
Flow batteries, for example, store energy in liquid electrolytes held in tanks. They can be particularly interesting for stationary applications where physical size matters less than it does inside a car or mobile phone.
Sodium-ion batteries use sodium rather than relying on lithium as a key ingredient. Sodium is widely available, although the technology has different performance characteristics from lithium-ion batteries.
Other approaches include thermal storage, compressed-air systems, pumped hydro and technologies that store energy using gravity.
There probably won’t be one battery technology that wins every contest.
A battery designed for an electric car needs to be light and compact. A system designed to store electricity beside a solar farm may have very different priorities.
The future of energy storage is therefore likely to involve several technologies rather than one universal solution.
Green Hydrogen Could Help Where Electricity Is Difficult
Hydrogen receives a great deal of attention in discussions about future energy systems.
Hydrogen can be produced by using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis.
When that electricity comes from renewable sources, the resulting fuel is commonly called green hydrogen.
The appeal is that hydrogen can store energy and potentially be used in industries that are difficult to electrify directly.
Possible applications include some industrial processes, chemical production, shipping and long-duration energy storage.
But producing hydrogen requires energy, and converting electricity into hydrogen and later using that hydrogen generally loses more energy than simply using electricity directly.
That means hydrogen isn’t necessarily the best solution for every car, home or appliance.
Its strongest future role may be in areas where direct electrification is difficult rather than as a replacement for electricity everywhere.
Smart Grids Are Making Electricity More Flexible
Not every important clean-energy innovation generates electricity.
Some help us manage it.
Traditional electricity systems were designed largely around big power stations sending electricity in one direction towards consumers.
Modern grids are becoming much more complicated.
A house can consume electricity from the grid in one moment and export rooftop solar electricity the next. Batteries can charge and discharge. Electric vehicles create large flexible loads. Wind and solar generation changes with weather conditions.
Smart grids use sensors, communications, automation and data to help manage these increasingly complex flows of electricity.
In the future, an electricity system may be able to coordinate millions of devices — from household batteries and EV chargers to industrial equipment — so that more electricity is used when renewable generation is plentiful.
Artificial Intelligence Is Entering the Energy System
Artificial intelligence is another technology beginning to influence renewable energy.
AI and machine learning can analyse large amounts of information from weather forecasts, electricity demand, equipment sensors and energy markets.
This can help predict solar and wind generation, identify potential equipment problems and assist electricity networks in balancing supply and demand.
A wind turbine, for example, contains sensors that continuously monitor its operation.
Analysing that data can help identify unusual vibration or performance changes before a component fails.
Similar techniques can be used across solar farms, batteries and electricity networks.
AI doesn’t create renewable energy itself, but it may help existing energy technology operate more efficiently.
Perovskite Solar Cells Could Change Solar Technology
Most solar panels today use silicon cells.
Researchers are also developing solar cells using materials known as perovskites.
They have attracted considerable interest because they can absorb sunlight efficiently and potentially be manufactured using different processes from conventional silicon solar cells.
One promising approach combines perovskite and silicon in tandem solar cells.
Different materials can capture different parts of the sunlight spectrum, potentially allowing a tandem cell to convert more sunlight into electricity than a conventional single-junction silicon cell.
Laboratory results have been impressive.
The challenge is turning laboratory performance into products that remain stable and reliable for decades outdoors while being manufactured safely and economically at enormous scale.
That journey from laboratory record to everyday rooftop can take many years.
Innovation Doesn’t Always Mean Something Completely New
Some of the most important improvements in renewable energy aren’t dramatic new inventions.
Solar panels gradually become more efficient.
Wind turbine blades become longer and lighter.
Battery manufacturing improves.
Power electronics become more capable.
Installation methods become faster.
Software becomes smarter.
Each improvement may appear small, but multiplied across millions of solar panels, turbines, batteries and homes, incremental changes can have an enormous effect.
Clean-energy innovation is therefore as much about improving technologies that already work as inventing entirely new ones.
Not Every New Technology Will Succeed
Emerging energy technologies often attract exciting headlines.
A laboratory discovery may be described as something that will revolutionise energy, even though years of testing and development may still lie ahead.
Some technologies prove too expensive. Others struggle with durability, manufacturing or environmental concerns. Some simply can’t compete with technologies that are already improving rapidly.
That isn’t necessarily failure.
Research involves testing ideas, learning what works and abandoning approaches that don’t.
It is worth keeping some healthy scepticism whenever a new technology is described as the single answer to the world’s energy problems.
Energy systems are simply too large and complicated for one invention to solve everything.
What Might the Renewable Energy Future Look Like?
The future is unlikely to be dominated by one spectacular technology.
Instead, today’s solar panels and wind turbines will probably continue improving while newer technologies find the areas where they work best.
Floating solar may make better use of reservoirs.
Floating wind could open deeper oceans.
New batteries may provide longer-duration storage.
Smart grids could coordinate millions of energy devices.
Green hydrogen may help industries that are difficult to electrify.
And technologies still inside laboratories today may eventually become ordinary parts of homes, buildings and electricity networks.
The clean-energy transition isn’t waiting for one miraculous breakthrough.
It is being built through thousands of innovations — some large, some small — that gradually make renewable energy more useful, flexible and practical.
And that may be the most exciting part.
We already know how to generate large amounts of renewable electricity.
Now innovation is helping us discover just how much more we can do with it.
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