Despite the pandemic and an economic recession, businesses and governments continued to pursue their decarbonization plans in 2020, according to Deloitte. Even without a direct incentive for green infrastructure development in the economic stimulus measures passed in response to COVID-19, clean energy demand in the US proved resilient, as renewables and storage recorded declining costs and rising capacity and usage factors.

Jason Czapla is walking across a former lake bed in the middle of southern California. The ground simmers at our feet as little mud volcanoes disgorge piles of hot, sulfurous muck. The Salton Sea glitters in the distance, beckoning as the morning temperature approaches 106 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Organic energy makes power from light at any angle, in any way. It's totally flexible because it's just printed ink. Conceptually, it's a whole new thought process on how we make power," said Paul Frischer, President of GO-OPV, an organic energy company.

Exxonmobil, once the world’s most valuable publicly traded oil company, is not easily swayed. As green investors urged it to develop cleaner energy, it planned instead to pump 25% more oil and gas by 2025. As rivals wrote down billions of dollars in assets, it said its own reserves were unaffected. But in the maelstrom of 2020 even mighty Exxon had to budge.

While the world must wait to see whether US president-elect Joe Biden can fulfil his election promise of a $2tn Green New Deal, nations elsewhere in the world are setting carbon-neutral targets and pushing ahead with mega-programmes to cut emissions, create jobs and reduce energy prices. Spain, South Korea, Uruguay and Kenya are some of the frontrunners in their regions.

Oil gained the most in a week amid signals a Covid-19 vaccine is highly effective against the coronavirus, boosting optimism that an uptick in demand may be nearing. Futures climbed 3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly touched an intraday record after Moderna Inc. said its vaccine had 94.5% efficacy in a preliminary analysis of a large, late-stage clinical trial. That followed similar positive developments from Pfizer on its vaccination last week, which buoyed risky assets globally.

The world’s largest power station is planned for a vast piece of desert in Australia’s remote north-west. Called the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, its size is difficult to conceptualise. If built in full, there will be 1,600 giant wind turbines and a 78 sq km array of solar panels a couple of hundred kilometres east of Port Hedland in the Pilbara.

This summer, US gas company Air Products & Chemicals, announced that it has been building a green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia for the past four years, as part of the futuristic Neom city to be built in the Saudi Arabian desert. The plant is powered by four gigawatts of electricity from wind and solar projects that sprawl across the desert. It claims to be the world’s largest green hydrogen project.

Three of Britain’s biggest energy companies have agreed to build giant underwater power cables to bring Scotland’s vast reserves of renewable energy to millions of homes in England. The multibillion-pound energy “superhighway” could help to unlock the potential of the plan to build enough offshore wind farms to power every home in the country by 2030.

The twin goals of any actions a President Biden might take will be the creation of union jobs in the clean energy sector and achieving 100% clean energy generation by 2035. Neither will be easy, especially the 100% clean energy target. Yet even if that goal is not achieved the mere pursuit of net-zero will almost certainly re-shape the US energy landscape and further accelerate renewable generation.

Scientists from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a ‘liquid window’ designed to reduce energy consumption in buildings. According to the research, the window panels are able to block the sunlight while absorbing heat that can be released during the day.

Wind and solar power pushing out fossil fuel generation has cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions more than the Covid-19 pandemic. Renewable energy’s share of electricity generation also hit a record 26.5% across the five states forming the national energy market in the 12 months to the end of September.