Exploring the growth of sustainable energy Technologies: A review

Abstract

The economic growth of the nations is highly dependent on the hydrocarbon fuel, despite limited supplies, demand has been continually increasing, which makes it critical to manage energy resources. It is therefore important to evaluate the current scholarship in the domain of sustainable energy technologies, which are reducing the dependency on carbon fuels and conserve the fast depleting natural resources. This study aims to present a bibliometric analysis by coupling a systematic review of literature of current body of knowledge in the domain of sustainable energy technologies. This study reviews 2766 documents in the field of sustainable energy technologies published in the WoS. A comprehensive material about the growth in research, leading authors, publishers and journals that contribute the literature is presented in the first part. We then present an analysis of major research studies that encapsulates the sustainable energy technologies research, followed by an exhaustive analysis of the contemporary research published during the past five years. The results unveil a phenomenal rise in the research output for 25 studies in 2005 and peaking to 833 in 2021. The future directions of the research have been identified as work on efficient carbon capture, innovative systems for urban heating and cooling. Sustainable technologies which help rural and framing communities as well as technologies to reduce energy consumption in large infrastructural projects are identified as the themes of prospective research. Improving the technologies in construction material, energy storage and advancing the intelligent grid systems are some of the most desired areas for advancement in the sustainable energy technology.