solar-energy

Helios is a web tool that estimates the potential plug-in solar generation for any address in Britain, helping users assess if it's worth installing.

In the first quarter of 2026, US solar and hydroelectric growth pushed coal off the grid, with solar output up 24% and overall renewable growth outpacing demand, leading to a 10% drop in coal use.

This paper presents a case study using an LLM-driven tree search algorithm (ERA) combined with a coding agent (AntiGravity) to autonomously generate high-efficiency three-dimensional photovoltaic structures, overcoming limitations of flat solar panels at mid-latitudes. The workflow includes iterative patching to eliminate reward hacking and discovers improved designs under various constraints.

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a pyrimidone-based molecule that absorbs sunlight, stores energy in chemical bonds, and releases heat on demand, achieving an energy density of 1.6 MJ/kg and demonstrating the ability to boil water, offering a promising approach for long-term solar energy storage.

Research shows that sulfur dioxide aerosols from coal burning reduce solar power production by up to 7.7% in regions with high coal usage, offsetting growth in countries like China. The study highlights an additional incentive to transition away from coal.

China has massively scaled solar deployment, converting parking lots and rooftops into power plants, and achieved its 1.2 TW wind and solar goal in 2024, six years ahead of the 2030 target.

A PNAS study finds that converting just 3.2 % of US corn-for-ethanol farmland to solar could match all current corn ethanol energy output, as solar is 31× more land-efficient.

Version 2 of the GM-SEUS open dataset now maps 3.4 million U.S. solar panels plus new rooftop arrays, up from 2.9 million in v1.

IEA reports 2025 saw the largest single-year global generation increase ever recorded, with solar PV covering over two-thirds of new electricity demand growth and batteries adding 110 GW of capacity.