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Introducing our two new journals: EES Solar and EES Batteries

Harnessing the power of the Sun

Solar technology is filled with potential.

Scientists working in chemistry, energy, materials science and engineering are discovering new ways to convert light energy and generate electricity.

EES Solar, part of the EES family, gives this influential research a home.  Our authors rely on us for a seamless publishing experience: regular communication during the submission process, meaningful feedback at peer review, and worthwhile guidance post-publication.

Work with our expert editorial boards. Get support from our in-house energy team. Make a difference to the world with your publications.

Meet the EES Family

Energy & Environmental Science

EES Batteries

EES Catalysis

Announcing our Editor-in-Chief: Professor Michael Saliba



I am driven to advance the global transition to a sustainable energy future, and to shape EES Solar into a premier platform to exchange ideas and drive the progression of solar research.
Professor Michael Saliba
Editor-in-Chief, EES Solar 
University of Stuttgart & Research Center Juelich, Germany

Journal scope

EES Solar is a premier interdisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-impact research focused on solar energy and photovoltaics. Building on the reputation of the companion journal Energy & Environmental Science for high quality and influence, EES Solar aims to be a leading publication for groundbreaking studies that span a wide range of scientific disciplines, all connected by the thread of solar. The journal welcomes studies and analyses at all scales, from groundbreaking fundamental advances to interdisciplinary research across chemistry, physics, materials science, engineering, theory, and policy and techno-economic analyses, for advancing the field of solar energy. Research that utilizes green materials and sustainable practices, championing developments that minimize environmental impact while achieving high performance is particularly encouraged.

EES Solar is the home for exceptional research that pushes the boundaries of solar research and its applications. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Solar cell and photovoltaic research
  • Solar fuels and artificial photosynthesis
  • Photocatalysts for energy and environmental applications
  • Photothermal and photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion
  • Photonics
  • Light-matter interaction and spectroscopy
  • Photovoltaic system design, solar power systems, and integration
  • Modelling, simulation, and theoretical studies including AI and machine learning
  • Policy work and techno-economic analyses

Our goal is to serve a diverse audience, including academic researchers, industry professionals, and policymakers, by providing a platform for influential, high-impact research that addresses both fundamental and applied aspects of solar energy and photovoltaics.

See who's on the team

Meet EES Solar's Editor-in-Chief and board members.

Article types

  • Communications
  • Full papers
  • Reviews
  • Perspectives
  • Mini-reviews
  • Opinions
  • Analysis articles
  • Comments
See more information about these article types

Communications

Our Communication format is ideally suited to short studies – which can be preliminary in nature – that are of such importance that they require accelerated publication.

Communications must contain original and highly significant work whose interest to the EES Solar readership and high novelty warrants rapid publication. Authors should supply with their submission a justification of why the work merits urgent publication as a Communication. Reviewers will be asked to judge the work on these grounds.

Communications are given high visibility within the journal as they are published as the front of an issue. Communications will not normally exceed the length of five printed journal pages.

Full papers

Full papers contain original scientific work that has not been published previously. Full papers based on Communications are encouraged provided that they represent a substantial extension of the original material. There are no restrictions on the length of a paper. Authors should include a brief discussion in the Introduction that sets the context for the novel work and gives their motivation for carrying out the study.

Reviews, Perspectives & Mini-reviews

These are normally commissioned by the editorial board and editorial office, although suggestions are most welcome – proposals (comprising the title, short synopsis, and key references) should be sent by email to the Editors at EESSolar-RSC@rsc.org.

Reviews, Perspectives and Minireviews must be high-quality, authoritative, state-of-the-art accounts of the selected research field. They should be timely and add to the existing literature, rather than duplicate existing articles, and should be of general interest to the journal's wide readership.

All Reviews, Perspectives and Minireviews undergo a rigorous and full peer review procedure, in the same way as regular research papers.

Review articles report a detailed, balanced and authoritative current account of the selected research field. Review articles normally comprise 10,000 or more words of text, together with supporting figures and tables.

Perspectives present an authoritative state-of-the-art account of a research field. A Perspective may take the form of a personal account of research, or a critical analysis of a topic of current interest. In either form, some new unpublished research may be included. Perspectives normally comprise 5,000 to 10,000 words of text, together with supporting figures and tables.

Mini-reviews are shorter, more focused accounts of important new fields of research. They are typically up to 3,000 words in length.

All review content should consist of original text and interpretation, avoiding any direct reproduction. If a significant amount of other people's material is to be used, either textual or image-based, permission must be sought by the author in accordance with copyright law and must be made clear in the manuscript.

Opinions

Opinions are typically up to 2,000 words in length and provide a personal, often speculative, viewpoint or hypothesis on a topic of current interest to the scientific community. They may concern a recent publication in the journal (in which case the author(s) concerned will be given the opportunity to respond) or discuss any current hot topic from the authors' point of view; provided that they are not defamatory to the work of others they can be controversial and stimulate counter-opinion. They can include a short biography of the author(s).

Although – by their nature – Opinion articles may be more speculative than traditional papers, for publication in EES Solar Opinions must contain rigorous, evidence-backed scientific justification, be referenced where possible, and bring significant and valuable insights to the field.

Opinions on set topics may be invited by the editorial office, but unsolicited pieces in response to papers already published are encouraged to promote science.

Analysis articles

The purpose of Analysis articles is to quantitatively analyse technologies and technological systems.

Analysis articles provide an in-depth examination of solar energy technologies, strategies, policies, and overarching conceptual frameworks that will be of interest to the journal's wide and global readership. They should present new methods and data and fresh insights and should be written for a scientifically literate audience. They must demonstrate scholarly rigour and tightness of presentation comparable to articles in mainstream science.

An Analysis article should not simply be a repository of data with superficial or speculative commentary. Instead, through an Analysis article, a reader of EES Solar should learn something new about methods or data, or will be educated about an important new technology or technological strategy, or will see a policy argument in a fresh light.

Authors of potential Analysis articles are encouraged to contact the editorial office, to discuss the scope and suitability of their article. All Analysis submissions will be subject to rigorous peer review in the normal way.

Comments

Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in EES Solar.

For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or a new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication.

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Peer review and editorial process

All articles published in EES Solar are subject to external peer review by anonymised experts in the field and are handled by a team of internationally recognised Associate Editors, who are all practicing scientists in the field.

The peer review for all articles submitted to the journal consists of the following stages:

  1. Your manuscript is initially assessed by an editor to determine its suitability for peer review
  2. If the manuscript passes the initial assessment process, the associate editor solicits recommendations from at least two anonymous reviewers who are experts in the field. They will provide a report along with their recommendation.
  3. The associate editor handling your manuscript makes a decision based on the reviewer reports received. In the event that no clear decision can be made, another reviewer will be consulted.

EES Solar is committed to a rigorous peer review process and expert editorial oversight for all published content. Please refer to our processes and policies for full details including our appeals procedure.

Transparent peer review policy

To support increased transparency, we offer authors the option of transparent peer review, where the editor’s decision letter, reviewers’ comments and authors’ response for all versions of the manuscript will be published alongside the article under an Open Access Creative Commons licence (CC-BY). Reviewers are anonymous unless they choose to sign their report.

Find out more about our transparent peer review policy.

Journal guidelines

The following guidelines are journal specific. For general guidance on preparing an article please visit our Prepare your article and Resources for authors pages, the content of which is relevant to all of our journals.

Broader context

All articles must include a separate paragraph (no more than 200 words) that places the work into a universally broader context. This should be different from the abstract and introduction and serve the purpose of emphasising why the research challenge being addressed is fundamentally relevant to pressing global issues in solar energy science. We require this Broader Context paragraph at submission stage and it should be written so as to be accessible to both specialist and non-specialist readers, as it will be published alongside the article.

Characterisation of new catalysts

Where the screening of new catalysts is reported, authors should provide a mass balance for all reactions (using, for example, an internal standard in their analysis technique). Recycling efficiencies should be based on reaction rate measurements and not product yield as a function of a cycle. It is highly desirable to report the reaction rate for the catalysts as a turnover frequency or mass-specific activity or, for heterogeneous catalysts, as surface-specific activity.

Reporting efficiencies of solar conversion devices

Guideline statement

Authors and referees should note the following guidelines for articles reporting the efficiency of solar conversion devices. Authors should ensure the following information is provided in the main manuscript or supplementary information as appropriate.

Important data, in particular JV and EQE of solar cells, should be uploaded in machine readable format including a header with units.

A full, conventional error analysis should be carried out and reported. This should consist of both random and systematic/bias analyses of values to support the main claims presented in the article, and information on how the error analysis was carried out. In particular, researchers should comment on the type and number of devices and whether all devices used to compile the statistics were made in one run (e.g. batch) or were collected from several independent processing campaigns.

Efficiencies should be reported to an appropriate number of significant figures, along with a standard deviation. This also includes presenting error bars on graphs.

A sufficient number of samples should be tested, and a sufficient number of trials performed.

The 1 Sun AM 1.5G reference spectrum should be used as standard for testing power conversion efficiency and a justification provided where this is not used.

Full experimental conditions under which the efficiency is measured should be declared. Special attention should be paid to documenting the active area of the device, the calibration protocol and properties of the illumination including spectral irradiance and intensity. This may also include as appropriate, but is not limited to, air temperature, use of a glove box, properties and characteristics of the test cell and standardized cell used for calibration, including dimensions and spatial non-uniformity, light source, bias, duration, and calibration and measurement protocols. Information on the use of masks and their area should be provided. Ideally, measurements should be taken ‘masked’ where the mask should be about 10% smaller than the active area.

Independent certification of the photovoltaic performance of the device being reported is strongly encouraged when the main claims rely on the absolute efficiency value being reported. A full certified report should include details of what reference cell was used to calibrate the spectrometer and consideration of spectral mismatch calculation.

If incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE), also referred to as external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements are performed, the results should be integrated to a resulting short circuit current that can be compared with 1 Sun AM 1.5G power conversion efficiency data. The details of how this calculation is done and any correction factors should be clearly defined, as well as whether it was measured with background illumination. We also encourage using the same procedure with other spectra, such as LED spectra for indoor lighting.

If hysteresis is observed, details on timescale and stability of the efficiency should be provided. For cells where hysteresis is possible (such as metal-halide perovskites), forward and reverse scan JV data should be reported and averages between forward and reverse efficiencies should be quoted in the text. At no point should the higher of the two values be mentioned in isolation. The scan speed must be mentioned. Measurements of current-voltage curves at different scan speeds are encouraged. In the case where the main claims rely on the absolute efficiency, then maximum power point tracking data over typically 5 minutes should be provided for determination of the stabilized efficiency, ideally from time zero on to see whether there are transient effects.

If the calibration cell is given, the last date for the calibration (and by whom) should be listed as well.

Ethical requirements

EES Solar authors, editors, reviewers and published works are required to uphold the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ethical standards. The Royal Society of Chemistry is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and our ethical standards follow COPE’s core practices and best practice guidelines. In cases where these guidelines are breached or appear to be so, the Royal Society of Chemistry will consult with COPE guidelines and act accordingly.

When a study involves the use of live animals or human subjects, authors must include in the 'methods/experimental' section of the manuscript a statement that all experiments were performed in compliance with the author’s institute’s policy on animal use and ethics; where possible, details of compliance with national or international laws or guidelines should be included. The statement must name the institutional/local ethics committee which has approved the study; where possible, the approval or case number should be provided. A statement that informed consent was obtained for any experimentation with human subjects is required. Reviewers may be asked to comment specifically on any cases in which concerns arise.

For further guidance on author responsibilities and code of conduct, which apply to EES Solar and to all manuscripts submitted to Royal Society of Chemistry journals, please visit our author hub.

Open access

As a gold open access journal, EES Solar can maximise the potential and visibility of your publications. Our articles are free to read, access and cite by anyone around the world. We are also covering all article processing charges until mid-2027, so you can publish with us for free.

We offer EES Solar authors a choice of two Creative Commons licences: CC BY or CC BY NC. Publication under these licences means that authors retain the copyright of their article, but users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Read our open access statement for further information.

All published articles are deposited with LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico and the British Library for archiving.

Dive into the benefits of open access publishing

Find out more about open access publishing routes

Explore Royal Society of Chemistry open access journals

Read our Researchers’ voice report in response to Plan S

Subscription information

EES Solar is fully gold open access – articles can be downloaded free from the website with no barriers to access. EES Solar publishes 6 issues per year.

Copyright

Copyright is retained by authors when an open access licence is accepted, as with our standard licence to publish agreement. Full and accurate attribution to the original author is required for any re-use of the work. Find out more about copyright, licences and re-use permission.

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