The application areas of batteries are currently booming. The recent generation of devices combines a high energy density with a reasonable cost and life expectancy, making them suitable not only for cars but also electric bikes, scooters, forklifts, gardening and household tools, storage batteries as well as airborne applications such as drones, helicopters, and small airplanes.

Batteries are of vital importance for storing intermittent renewable energy for stationary and mobile applications. In order to charge the battery and maintain its capacity, the states of the battery - such as the current charge, safety and health, but also quantities that cannot be measured directly - need to be known to the battery management system. State estimation estimates the electrical state of a system by eliminating inaccuracies and errors from measurement data. Numerous methods and techniques are used for lithium-ion and other batteries. The various battery models seek to simplify the circuitry used in the battery management system.

Bifacial photovoltaic (PV) modules are able to utilize light from both sides and can therefore significantly increase the electric yield of PV power plants, thus reducing the cost and improving profitability. Bifacial PV technology has a huge potential to reach a major market share, in particular when considering utility scale PV plants. Accordingly, bifacial PV is currently attracting increasing attention from involved engineers, scientists and investors.

Smart grids with distributed clean energy generation, storage and prosumers are the future of energy systems. They need two-way digital communication between multiple customers and suppliers of energy, to produce, buy and sell electricity to the grid at small scales. These arrangements need a system that maintains, checks, and registers information about transactions.

A Marginal Revolution Best Book of the Year
Winner of the Shulman Book Prize

A noted expert on Russian energy argues that despite Europe’s geopolitical rivalries, natural gas and deals based on it unite Europe’s nations in mutual self-interest.

Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet empire, the West faces a new era of East–West tensions. Any vision of a modern Russia integrated into the world economy and aligned in peaceful partnership with a reunited Europe has abruptly vanished.

Two opposing narratives vie to explain the strategic future of Europe, one geopolitical and one economic, and both center on the same resource: natural gas. In The Bridge, Thane Gustafson, an expert on Russian oil and gas, argues that the political rivalries that capture the lion’s share of media attention must be viewed alongside multiple business interests and differences in economic ideologies. With a dense network of pipelines linking Europe and Russia, natural gas serves as a bridge that unites the region through common interests.

Tracking the economic and political role of natural gas through several countries—Russia and Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway—The Bridge details both its history and its likely future. As Gustafson suggests, there are reasons for optimism, but whether the “gas bridge” can ultimately survive mounting geopolitical tensions and environmental challenges remains to be seen.