The latest Middle East war has prompted the global community to seek future alternatives to oil and natural gas. Instead of concerns about climate change fueling the transition to renewables and low-carbon alternatives, the U.S.-Israel bombings of Iran and that country’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz have galvanized nations and the energy industry.
The immediate winners in this latest conflict are developers of solar cells, batteries, wind turbines, and the nuclear industry. Here are some of the latest new energy stories that don’t involve oil and gas, and I hope, whet your appetite.
Solar Power Conversion Limit Records Keep Being Broken
In Japan, Kyushu University researchers are breaking through the current ceiling of solar cell conversion efficiency, surpassing current highs of 33% for silicon and 34% for perovskite-silicon tandem cells.
Using molybdenum-based spin-flip (SF) emitters, these new solar cells are achieving 100% energy yields, describing that threshold as a fundamental limit, and with quantum yields exceeding 130%.
SF emitters use a specialized metal complex that flips and spins to capture photons, converting the entire spectrum of light, something conventional solar cells cannot do. Silicon and perovskite-silicon cells do not convert the infrared end of the spectrum from light to electricity. They also convert the heat emitted from high-energy blue light to electricity, something conventional solar cell technologies cannot do.
SF emitters, therefore, unlike older solar cell technology, go beyond the “one photon to one exciton rule.” Yoichi Sasaki, in the Faculty of Engineering at Kyushu University, notes that using SF generates two excitons by splitting a single photon into two lower-energy excitons, hence doubling the energy yield.
Overcoming energy loss required the researchers to experiment with different metal complexes engineered precisely to the molecular level. They chose a molybdenum-based SF emitter that harvested energy at an amplified ratio of 1.3:1, or 130% energy yield for every single photon absorbed.
The researchers plan to integrate their SF emitters into future solar cells and LEDs. You can read their recently published paper in the March 25, 2026, edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Solar “Molecular” Battery
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have synthesized an organic molecule to capture photonic energy and store it, releasing it on demand as heat. They call their invention MOST, or Molecular Solar Thermal reusable storage.
MOST stores energy from sunlight during the day and releases it as heat. Derived from pyrimidone, a molecule that is structurally similar to uracil, one of the four base pairs that make up DNA, it is used today in antipsychotics like risperidone and statins, like rosuvastatin, a drug I take daily to manage my cholesterol.
Pyrimidone is soluble in liquid and achieves high energy densities, storing 1.6 megajoules per kilogram, or 0.69 BTUs per pound. When switched on, it produces enough heat to boil water.
When pumped through rooftop solar collectors, pyrimidone can store energy and release it as heat at night. Other applications include off-grid heating and cooking.
This is solar energy storage without a lithium-ion or other chemical battery. It can store energy long-term with a half-life of 1,240 days. You can read more by accessing the original research paper that appeared in the February 2026 edition of the journal Science.
New Quantum Battery Can Hold 1 Billion Electron Volts
University of Melbourne, RMIT University and Australia’s national science agency (CSIRO) announced in March 2026 that they had created a quantum battery prototype that leverages quantum mechanics rather than chemistry. It is tiny and currently can hold a minuscule charge for a few nanoseconds. The promise comes in upsizing. That’s because of a fundamental quantum effect that is completely counterintuitive. Quantum batteries charge faster, the larger they get, which is unlike conventional battery storage technology today. So, double the size and use only half the time to charge the battery.
Dr. James Quach, at CSIRO, was the lead on the project. The prototype battery’s charging behaviour shows it retains stored energy six times longer than it takes to charge. Quach notes that the battery is charged using a laser and operates at room temperature, unlike many quantum devices.
Quach’s goal is to create quantum batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) that recharge in less than a minute. He also envisions the ability to wirelessly charge devices powered by quantum batteries over long distances.
The battery is multi-layered and organic, and, as Quach states, it lays the groundwork for “next-gen energy solutions.” He continues, “The next step…is extending their energy storage time. If we can overcome that hurdle, we’d be that bit closer to commercially viable quantum batteries.”
You can read more about the technology by accessing the March 13, 2026, article that appeared in the journal Light: Science and Applications.
