Review on 100% Renewable Energy System Analyses—A Bibliometric Perspective

Concerns related to climate change and global warming caused by anthropogenic activities and fossil energy use in particular have been increasing lately. Air pollution and volatile conventional fuel prices emphasize the need to transition global energy systems towards very high shares of renewables. 100% renewable energy systems have been analyzed by many researchers starting from 1975. This bibliometric analysis reviews more than 600 scientific articles in which 100% renewable energy systems were surveyed. This study uses tools of bibliometric analysis based on publication databases and data mining together with review elements to understand the status and trend of 100% renewable energy systems research. The focus of results is on quantitative parameters relating to number and publication types, collaborative links among authors, institutions, and countries. Collaborative networks illustrate the significant concentration of published papers within organizations and co-authorships globally. The results reveal that the dominant organizations and thus number of published papers are from Europe and the USA; however, almost all the established research organizations in the field of energy system analysis are not active in the field of 100% renewable energy systems analyses. The journals Energy and Applied Energy have the most articles, and accordingly the most citations. EnergyPLAN and LUT Energy System Transition Model have been the most active tools used to analyze 100% renewable energy systems according to numbers of articles and received citations. The topic of modeling approach indicates the term ‘Energy System’ has the highest frequency due to its emergence in the articles. This research provides a holistic overview on the more than four decades of research, and it reveals dynamics within the field with a compound annual growth rate of articles of 26% in the 2010s, the trend of increasing the number publications, and author growth that comprises almost 1400 published authors.