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.

Not a member of ISES yet? If you are not yet a member, you will be offered the opportunity of purchasing a subscription to Solar Energy during your registration process. Please join ISES here.

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 Solar Energy: Special Issue on Perovskite Solar Cells

Perovskite solar cells are rapidly becoming a new archetype of excitonic solar cells after the discovery of a breakthrough in the photovoltaic filed using organometal perovskites as light harvesters. Though first efficiency reported 2010 was a humble 3.8% the power conversion efficiency has rapidly improved to exceeding 25% in single-junction and to over 30% using multi-junction devices. Recently, perovskite solar cells have crossed the device efficiency of 42% under indoor/artificial light conditions leading to building-integrated photovoltaic as well as Internet of Things applications. These accomplishments have attracted a lot of attention. Despite perovskite devices having shown exciting efficiency numbers several technological challenges remain regarding its stability, replacement of toxic lead material with environmentally benign metal and stable hole transporting materials etc.

The goal of the special issue is to present snapshots of the leading research in this fascinating field that will set the stage for guiding future research activities. We aim to present a collection of experimental and theoretical papers reporting the most recent accomplishments in the field. In particular, we are interested in papers featuring new elucidations to increasing the stability of perovskite solar cells compatible with established technologies. We will give precedence to works focusing on environmentally safe answers, which include the use of lead-free perovskites, low-cost efficient hole transporting materials, electrode materials, electron transport materials and green processing. The publications in this Special Issue will improve understanding of this novel material and its properties.

Submission Deadline: 29 February 2024

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.

Publications Alert

You can sign up for email alerts from the Solar Energy Journal, so you will be notified every time a new article is published. To sign up for the alerts, please use our manual here.

Abstracting / Indexing

  • Applied Mechanical Review
  • Applied Science & Technology Index
  • BIOSIS Database
  • CABS
  • Current Contents
  • EIC Intelligence
  • Engineering Index Monthly & Author Index
  • Environmental Periodicals Bibliography
  • Bibliographic and Ordering Information

Commenced publication 1957