ICEPT staff and PhD students publish widely in a range of academic journals, policy reports and technical papers.
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Journal articleDe Nicola A, Patriarca T, Fresilli B, et al., 2027, , Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol: 244, Part C, ISSN: 1364-0321
The energy transition is characterized by the increasing complexity and interdependence of technological, economic, policy, environmental, and social dimensions. While a large and rapidly growing body of literature addresses these aspects, differences in terminology, conceptual scope, and analytical focus hinder the integration of findings across studies and the alignment of diverse modeling approaches. This paper presents the Energy System Ontology (ESO), a comprehensive conceptual framework developed to bridge these gaps and support the structured organization and synthesis of knowledge related to energy systems and energy transition. ESO is constructed through a systematic, multidisciplinary review of the energy transition literature combined with ontology engineering principles to ensure robustness. The framework identifies and formalizes core relationships across energy technologies, markets, policies, and environmental contexts, enabling a consistent representation of the energy nexus while preserving vital disciplinary distinctions. The resulting ontology provides a domain-wide reference that supports comparative analysis, semantic interoperability across heterogeneous energy-system representations, and the systematic exploration of transition pathways. The current evaluation provides requirements-based verification and application-oriented evidence rather than independent external validation. By offering an explicit and extensible structure, ESO contributes to greater transparency and provides a robust framework for the analysis of socio-technical systems within the energy transition.
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Journal articleSiyum ZG, Woods J, Kasuri L, et al., 2026, , Ecosystems and People, Vol: 22, ISSN: 2639-5908
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Journal articleStaffell I, Lowes R, Mehlig D, et al., 2026, , Environmental Research: Energy, Vol: 3, Pages: 048002-048002
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Electrifying transport and heat are central to climate change mitigation, as electricity is unequivocally lower carbon than burning fuels in cars, boilers and furnaces. In a recent paper, Dunstan and Drew argue that expanding electrification before complete power-sector decarbonisation yields no proven emissions savings, because the additional load from electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps (HPs) will be provided entirely by gas-fired power stations. We show that these claims rest upon simplifying assumptions about carbon accounting and power system operation, and mis-specified efficiencies for gas power plants, vehicles, boilers and HPs. When using empirically-grounded efficiency data, we show that even if HPs and EVs were powered solely by gas-fired power stations, they would use half as much fossil fuel as modern gas boilers or combustion-engine vehicles. We then explain how the British power system uses a mix of sources, so additional demand from electrification is met by energy storage, interconnection and demand-side response, alongside flexible power stations. Even without being ‘completely decarbonised’, the short-run marginal carbon intensity of British electricity is half that of unabated natural gas, and the mean carbon intensity is two-thirds lower. Our findings and the wider literature demonstrate that electrification benefits scale with electricity’s carbon intensity and contradict Dunstan and Drew’s zero-savings headline. Clarifying these basics is important for policy and public trust, because today’s purchases of long-lived vehicles and heating systems can lock in fossil-fuel dependency and continued carbon emissions for decades.</jats:p>
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Journal articleBamisile O, Acen C, Johnson N, et al., 2026, , Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol: 241, ISSN: 1364-0321
Solar photovoltaics (PV) are being deployed at terawatt scale, producing ∼7% of global electricity. Even small productivity gains translate into large national impacts. The factors that define performance range across device physics, system engineering and site-specific practice. This review addresses the fragmentation of data across individual aspects and case studies. We compile quantitative evidence on the principal factors affecting solar PV energy yield across cell, module and system levels. We focus on monocrystalline silicon (97% of modules sold), also considering thin-film, III–V, emerging organic and perovskite technologies, and alternative deployment concepts (building-integrated, agrivoltaic, floating PV and space-based solar power). In under a decade, commercial mono-c-Si module efficiency has improved by one-quarter, and the temperature coefficient for power has fallen by one-third to ∼0.30%/K. Large datasets report degradation rates of ∼0.5–0.75%/yr, with strong climate dependence. System orientation and sizing strongly affect productivity. We show that optimal module tilt follows a simple power law, that annual yield increases by 4–11% with seasonal tilt adjustment, 15–25% with one-axis, and 23–35% with two-axis tracking. Utility-scale systems oversize DC capacity, with mean inverter sizing ratio of 1.35, yet clipping losses are low as they rise log-linearly with this ratio. Bifacial modules account for around two-thirds of new capacity and increase capacity factors by 6–23%, depending largely on surface albedo. Agrivoltaics and floating PV offer co-benefits but wide ranges in energy productivity. Across modelling approaches, uncertainty often arises from differing system design assumptions and limited long-term field validation.
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Journal articleSapochetti L, Candelise C, Ruggieri G, 2026, , Energy Research & Social Science, Vol: 141, Pages: 104975-104975, ISSN: 2214-6296
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Journal articleSch枚nfeld JK, Pelz S, Beath H, et al., 2026, , Environmental Research Letters, Vol: 21, Pages: 204021-204021
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The Paris Agreement establishes that Parties’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) will represent a progression, a country’s highest possible ambition (HPA), and an equitable contribution to the collective long-term temperature goal. However, the agreement provides no guidance on how the HPA standard should be interpreted, assessed, or operationalised in practice. In response to this gap, initial scholarship has proposed frameworks to interpret HPA based on the treaty’s text and the wider international environmental law context, which includes the 2025 Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change from the International Court of Justice. Altogether, this has clarified how HPA is part of states’ due diligence obligations and sets the stage for the next challenge: how can the theoretical understanding of HPA be practically applied to assess whether NDCs reflect this norm? Here, we build on existing reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), emerging approaches reflected in the UNFCCC NDC synthesis report, and best practices from the research community. We describe expectations for the process, conduct, presentation, and documentation of NDCs of HPA. These expectations provide qualitative benchmarks and criteria for assessing whether Parties have undertaken a rigorous and reasoned process to identify their highest possible mitigation efforts, and whether the evidence provided is sufficient to make that reasoning open to scrutiny. This promotes transparency and consistency in the formulation and assessment of NDCs, whilst intentionally not assessing targets against quantified mitigation benchmarks. Finally, the proposed expectations are contextualised and illustrated with examples from the latest round of NDC submissions. This practical translation of theoretical obligations can serve as
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Journal articleBaader F, Moret S, Wiesemann W, et al., 2026, , iScience, Vol: 29
Energy transition studies often present hundreds of scenarios, yielding large datasets that are challenging to interpret. Alternative approaches define a few qualitative storylines, which are more accessible but disconnected from model-based evidence. Here, we show that decision trees, a popular machine learning technique, bridge this disconnect by distilling numerous scenarios into a small set of interpretable storylines centered around policy-relevant levers. We demonstrate this approach across three global and European case studies: First, we translate 1000 integrated assessment model scenarios into three storylines distinguished by their degrees of heating and industry electrification. Second, we show that 2°C warming pathways with continued fossil fuel usage only work under unusually mild climate responses. Third, we use 441 European pathways to show that high bioenergy or electrification are required for cost-effective climate neutrality. Our transferable approach helps decision-makers interpret large scenario sets by revealing how policy-relevant outputs are associated with different transition pathways.
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Conference paperPulga USEM, Strapasson A, Silva FGF, 2026,
Direct impacts on the ecosphere with the integration of hydrogen in port regions
, Brasília, Brazil, 2º Congresso Internacional e Multidisciplinar sobre o Urbano Emergências urbanas: direito à cidade, mudanças climáticas e racismo ambiental, Publisher: UnB / Laboratório Social UrbanoThe energy transition has decarbonization as its central focus, but it is also possible to observe other direct impacts on the ecosphere. The objective of the research is to analyze the main socio-environmental impacts of the production, use, and commercialization of green hydrogen in ports, having as a case study the Port of Pecém, in the state of Ceará, which has a pioneering Green Hydrogen Hub project. The research question is: what are the main impacts of replacing fossil fuels with green hydrogen in port operations at the Port of Pecém? The methodology is based on literature review, secondary data analysis, expert consultation, and mapping of the productive chain. It is observed that green hydrogen can bring opportunities for job creation, income, scientific and technological development, resilience in the energy matrix, as well as reduction of air pollutant emissions, especially particulate matter and nitrogen and sulfur oxides for the metropolitan region. However, technical-economic and financial challenges persist. The research provides recommendations for improving environmental, urban, and industrial public policies.
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Journal articleSenior J, Halttunen K, Staffell I, 2026, , Next Energy, Vol: 13
The war in Iran and Russia's invasion of Ukraine show that energy and geopolitics are locked in a powerful 2-way relationship: fossil fuel supply and demand influence geopolitics, while geopolitics shapes national energy strategies. The energy transition shifts attention to the geopolitics of renewable energy (RE), raising concerns over critical minerals, technological know-how, and manufacturing. However, academic debate largely focuses on how RE impacts geopolitics, neglecting how geopolitics affects RE deployment. This study uses 10 in-depth expert interviews from 2022 to investigate both directions of this relationship. Interviewees identified mechanisms by which solar photovoltaics, wind and battery production increase China-US tensions (particularly regarding manufacturing and critical minerals) and that these tensions already reduce RE deployment (primarily in the US). Recent developments, including the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its partial retrenchment, tariff escalation and Chinese export controls, are broadly consistent with those channels. We develop and apply a framework around ‘pressures’ and ‘tensions’ that distinguishes structural supply-chain vulnerabilities from the observable geopolitical responses they trigger, and traces how these map onto technology-specific deployment risks. Using this framework, the interviews challenge claims that diversification, substitution or recycling will mitigate critical mineral pressures in the near term. They also reveal differentiated vulnerabilities between technologies: batteries face the greatest geopolitical risks, and wind power is most resilient. Both directions of the RE-geopolitics relationship require further research, particularly with continued changes to the US IRA and new trade tariffs. Decarbonisation may intensify certain geopolitical tensions, and the risks identified here pose notable challenges to the technology roll-out required for the energy transition.
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Journal articleVandezande S, Green R, Slade R, 2026, , Energy Policy, Vol: 217, ISSN: 0301-4215
Highlights • A future-proof European electricity system requires focused & coherent reform of transmission policy frameworks. • Material benefits of reform include: improved congestion management; greater investment in generation and storage; greater anticipatory investment; and, investment in innovation. • A small number of large, clearly targeted incentives is considered more effective than a broad portfolio of generic, overlapping incentives. • To minimise discrimination, tariff signals should be adapted to users' capacity to understand and act on them. • Experts expressed a preference for time-of-use based incentives above, location-based incentives.
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OtherHuan Y, Zhou G, Hughes AC, et al., 2026,
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Journal articleOlid Stepanchuk A, Salsabilla SA, Putri SMD, et al., 2026,
Environmental evaluation of plastic waste end-of-life pathways in Malang District, Indonesia: a life cycle approach
, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, ISSN: 0948-3349 -
Journal articleSloughter T, Nicholls Z, Tang G, et al., 2026, , Geoscientific Model Development, Vol: 19, Pages: 9063-9076, ISSN: 1991-959X
Literature estimates of natural methane emissions, particularly from wetlands, have a wide range of uncertainty. Meanwhile, few Earth System Models (ESMs) explicitly model wetlands as a potential source of methane. As a result, Simple Climate Models that aim to emulate the behaviour of ESMs have little to constrain their present and future contributions. MAGICC, as of version 7.5.3, fixed natural methane concentrations as constant after the historical period. Two studies that model wetland methane emissions over the 21st century both find a relationship between those emissions and global temperature, though disagree on the extent of this temperature sensitivity. An updated version of MAGICC has been created that uses this evidence to include a linearised representation of the relationship between wetland methane emissions and global temperature. The temperature-sensitivity parameter in this relationship has been parametrised in a way such that its distribution encompasses the uncertainty in both modelling literature and carbon budget studies, reflecting the currently high degree of uncertainty in wetland emissions. Our results show how incorporating a temperature feedback in methane emissions leads to both higher temperature projections for all scenarios used here, and a widening of the uncertainty in global temperature response.
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Journal articleMehlig D, Staffell I, 2026,
Real-world mileage and survival of electric vehicles in Britain and implications for lifecycle emissions
, Nature Communications, ISSN: 2041-1723Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are typically estimated to have lower attributional lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles. These estimates rely upon lower usage emissions outweighing higher manufacturing emissions, but limited data on electric vehicle mileage, and how long they last, casts uncertainty over comparisons. Here we use data for every electric vehicle in Britain to assess mileage and lifetime compared to conventional and hybrid vehicles, and the implications for attributional lifecycle emissions. We find that first-generation BEVs were driven less and have not lasted as long as conventional vehicles, yet still had lower lifecycle emissions. The annual mileage and lifetime of BEVs purchased in 2026 will equal conventional vehicles if recent trends continue. Training a transformer neural network on this data, we estimate that current BEVs have projected attributional lifecycle emissions of 88 g CO2e per kilometre, less than half the 254-270 g for conventional vehicles and 190 g for hybrid vehicles, based on real-world usage.
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Journal articleHatton L, Oluleye G, Jansen M, et al., 2026, , Nature Communications, Vol: 17, ISSN: 2041-1723
High costs of capital are a major barrier to renewables deployment in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), impeding decarbonisation despite strong renewable resources. Using grid carbon intensity trajectories, we show that LMICs have mitigation potentials over 20 times larger per project than high-income countries, even before accounting for planned fossil projects. High costs of capital increase renewable levelised costs of electricity (LCOEs) in LMICs, adding an average of US$26/MWh (solar) and US$24/MWh (onshore wind) relative to high-income financing terms. Financing costs account for up to 78% of the LCOE in LMICs, compared with 37-39% in high-income countries, restricting a large portion of global technical potential. Under a scenario consistent with the target of tripling global renewable capacity by 2030, this corresponds to additional annual costs of US$245bn (solar) and US$329bn (wind). Our results highlight the importance of reducing financing costs in LMICs for a more equitable and efficient energy transition.
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Journal articlePelz S, Fricko O, Riahi K, et al., 2026, , Environmental Research Letters, Vol: 21
Integrated assessment model scenarios informing global climate ambition typically treat fairness and cooperation as external to the modelling process, reinforcing a perceived tension between fair effort-sharing and the urgent collective action needed to minimise exceedance of 1.5 °C. Here we introduce a generalisable framework that embeds principle-based fair-share considerations directly into the scenario generation process. This framework produces scenario variants that reconfigure transition pathways while preserving global peak and end of century climate outcomes. We explore this space across allocation approaches, transfer limits, and cooperation mechanisms, and propose a new lowest-feasible transfer scenario variant to bound it. We examine the integrated system shifts this new variant implies, and contrast it with the common exploration of fairness through ex-post assessments and unlimited financial transfers. We observe that the renewables deployment and electrification trajectories remain largely unchanged across all fair-share variants, while restricting transfers to lowest-feasible volumes accelerates global fossil decline. This effect prevails even when interregional cooperation is focussed on financing carbon dioxide removal with geological storage, where higher-responsibility regions’ fair-share obligations remain met primarily through domestic gross emissions reductions. Against a globally cost-effective 2 °C (>67%) scenario that reduces discounted consumption by approximately 0.8% relative to the no-new-policy reference scenario, integrating fair-share considerations raises this to at most 1.3% when transfers are restricted to lowest-feasible volumes. Notably, this aggregate is distributionally progressive, where lower-responsibility regions gain relative to the cost-effective source scenario. This deepened solution space persists even under a stringent 1.5 °C goal, though with differentiation increasingly settled through finance
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Journal articlePachauri S, Brutschin E, Gidden MJ, et al., 2026, , Plos Climate, Vol: 5
The Competing interests statement is updated to: The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests to declare: SPachauri was a member of the PLOS Climate Editorial Board at the time of submission and publication. MJG is affiliated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which did not provide specific support for this paper. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS Climate policies on sharing data and materials. There are no patents, products in development, or marketed products associated with this research to declare.
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Journal articleJansen M, Ameli N, Ostrovnaya A, et al., 2026, , Cell Reports Sustainability, Pages: 100827-100827, ISSN: 2949-7906
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Journal articleLamboll RD, Rogelj J, 2026, , Nature Climate Change, Vol: 16, Pages: 907-910, ISSN: 1758-678X
The Paris Agreement’s ‘well below 2 °C’ target is often interpreted as holding warming below 2 °C with a probability in the 66–90% range. We argue that such interpretations are not future-proof as decreasing uncertainties with time will allow temperatures to approach 2 °C later in the century. We show how referring to median warming can resolve this issue and illustrate how past probabilistic target interpretations would translate to a median 1.65–1.8 °C warming limit range.
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Journal articleJansen MF, Chou HH, Seidel S, 2026, , Agu Advances, Vol: 7
Atmospheric winds play a key role in shaping climate, ecosystems, and infrastructure. The energy that drives the winds is generated by the atmospheric heat engine. However, traditional entropy-budget descriptions of this heat engine rely on poorly constrained microscale processes, limiting their predictive power. To address this, we introduce a framework to compute the wind work from only two climate-dependent quantities: the height-weighted integrated radiative-cooling profile and a bulk Bowen ratio. Our results show that moderate global warming leads to only weak changes in wind work (and hence weak changes in global wind energy dissipation), due to a balance between increased height-weighted radiative cooling and decreased bulk Bowen ratio. This result is in line with the relatively weak and inconsistent trends in wind energy dissipation found in comprehensive climate models and reanalyses. However, this balance is not predicted to hold over a wider range of climates, consistent with a much less energetic circulation in simulations of past Snowball Earth climates.
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