Quo Vadis Solar Energy Research?

Abstract

In this paper, solar energy research trends and their publishing evolution are presented in terms of bibliometric analysis tools applied to the existing publications within the Web of Science Core Collection. Publishing evolution shows a clear interest in solar energy topics, as 50% of the total number of publications have been published within the time period between 2015 and 2020; most of them at journals and conference proceedings. A results analysis shows that China, the United States and India were the most productive countries in terms of solar energy research publications, and the list of the 10 most productive countries accounted for 83% of total publications within 2019 and 2020. The study pointed out as well that the main thematic areas in solar energy research in 2019–2020 were related to particular topics such as solar cells and optical properties, nanoparticles and composites, TiO2 and photocatalysis, and more general topics such as performance, simulations optimization and renewable energy. Based on paper findings, the research future of solar energy is bright, with continued growth in the publications record and a wide variety of research topics.