Developments in renewable energy sources?

Renewable energy is advancing on two fronts: generating more electricity from clean sources and making that power easier to store and use when the sun or wind is unavailable.

Solar panels keep improving, with perovskite-silicon tandem cells drawing interest for their potential to capture more sunlight than conventional silicon cells. Wind projects are also growing in scale, while floating offshore wind could open up deeper coastal waters that fixed-bottom turbines cannot reach.

Storage is a major part of the story. Alongside lithium-ion batteries, developers are exploring options such as sodium-ion batteries, flow batteries, pumped hydro and thermal storage. These approaches could support long-duration energy storage, although cost and project requirements vary widely.

There is renewed interest in enhanced geothermal systems, which aim to access heat in places where traditional geothermal resources are limited. Meanwhile, green hydrogen production may help supply industries that are difficult to electrify directly, but it still faces efficiency and cost challenges.

Many of these technologies are at different stages of development: some are already being deployed, while others are still scaling up. The practical question is increasingly how well generation, storage and grid upgrades can work together.