Beginning with Issue 1, 2026, Frontiers in Energy was officially renamed ENGINEERING Energy.
In the first issue of ENGINEERING Energy, Zhen Huang, Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Chair Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, published an editorial entitled “The unprecedented transformation in energy: The Third Energy Revolution toward carbon neutrality”. This paper explores the historical development of energy revolutions, the cornerstones of the third energy revolution, and the new cognitive frameworks and innovative thinking required for the construction of a new energy system.
1 Developmental context of energy revolutions in human history
To understand the ongoing energy revolution, it is essential to examine it through the historical lens of humanity’s energy evolution. The First Energy Revolution began in the mid-18th century with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt. This breakthrough enabled machines to replace manual labor, facilitating the large-scale use of coal and marking a transition from decentralized biomass energy to a relatively concentrated reliance on fossil fuels. This shift laid the foundation for modern industrial civilization.
The Second Energy Revolution, initiated in the mid-19th century, was characterized by Michael Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction, along with the invention of generators and electric motors, as well as major advances in electricity and internal combustion engine technologies. As a result, oil and electricity became the dominant energy sources, establishing a modern energy system based on centralized power generation and long-distance transmission, and ushering humanity into the era of electrification.
Today, humanity stands at the threshold of the Third Energy Revolution, which unlike the previous two, is primarily driven by global climate change and the global consensus on carbon neutrality. This revolution is characterized by the deep integration of renewable energy sources and digital intelligence. The logic governing energy development and utilization is fundamentally transforming. The core of this transformation lies in moving away from reliance on subsurface resource endowments, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, towards renewable energy systems driven by technological innovation. Through technological advancements, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power are being converted into stable electricity that is readily accessible for human use. Consequently, energy development is transitioning from a resource-driven paradigm to a technology-innovation-driven paradigm. As can be observed, every energy revolution involves not merely the simple substitution of one energy source for another, but the fundamental restructuring of the entire energy technology and system.
2 Cornerstone of the Third Energy Revolution and a new cognitive framework
The cornerstone of the Third Energy Revolution is renewable energy. Renewable energy plays a pivotal role and is transitioning from a supplementary energy source to a primary energy source. The energy think tank Ember reported that in the first half of 2025, global solar and wind power generation increased by 31% and 7.7%, respectively, with global renewable electricity generation surpassing coal-fired power for the first time, marking a landmark breakthrough in the global energy transition. This transformation is particularly pronounced in China. By the end of 2025, China’s installed wind and solar capacity reached 1800 GW, surpassing thermal power for the first time. Furthermore, the share of non-fossil energy in total installed capacity exceeded 61%, while its share of total power generation rose above 43%.
Behind these figures lies a fundamental restructuring of the entire energy system. With a robust industrial ecosystem, extensive application scenarios, and a commitment to technological innovation, China offers a critical roadmap and model for the global energy transition.
In the context of the Third Energy Revolution, a systematic reassessment of existing cognitive frameworks, development pathways, and evaluation systems is required. To advance energy technology innovation and construct a new energy system, it is imperative to establish new cognitive frameworks and mindsets that are commensurate with this transformation.
(1) New perspective of power
The core of the Third Energy Revolution lies in “the electrification of energy” and “the zero-carbonization of electricity”. In essence, the process of achieving carbon neutrality is a process of re-electrification based on zero-carbon power. On the energy supply side, decarbonizing electricity is the critical priority. Renewable power generation, particularly wind and solar power, plays a pivotal role in the transformation and will gradually shift from a supplementary source to the dominant source of energy, providing abundant and inexhaustible green electricity. However, due to the intermittency and variability of wind and solar power, thermal power equipped with carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), as well as nuclear power, will not only deliver zero-carbon electricity but also serve as reliable and flexible sources for system security and regulation.
On the energy demand side, it is necessary to reshape the underlying logic of energy use, namely, “re-electrification.” Re-electrification has two dimensions. The first is direct electrification, which refers to electrifying wherever electrification is feasible by replacing coal, oil, and gas with electricity. In the industrial sector, electricity-driven equipment replaces traditional fossil-fuel-driven equipment, such as substituting electric boilers and electric kilns for coalfired boilers and coal kilns. In steel production, electric arc furnaces are adopted in place of traditional blast-furnace ironmaking and basic oxygen furnace steelmaking processes. In the transport sector, electric vehicles exemplify the replacement of oil with electricity. In the building sector, electric heating and electric water heaters replace traditional building heating and hot water systems reliant on coal or natural gas. Through these measures, decarbonization can be achieved across end-use sectors, enabling a transition toward zero carbon.
The second dimension is indirect electrification, which is even more transformative. By converting surplus green electricity into green fuels such as hydrogen, ammonia, alcohols, ethers, and synthetic fuels, this approach not only provides green renewable fuels to address decarbonization challenges in sectors difficult to electrify directly, but also creates a new pathway for energy transfer across time and space. As a new form of energy storage, indirect electrification offers unique advantages in both storage scale and storage duration. Green fuels are easy to store and transport, enabling large-scale, cross-seasonal energy storage and wide-area sharing.
Under the new perspective on electricity, the temporal and carbon-emission attributes of electricity are becoming increasingly important. The temporal attribute of electricity refers to the fact that, with the rapid expansion of variable and intermittent wind and solar power, the value and price of electricity vary dramatically over time. When electricity is scarce, prices may surge sharply; in European and U.S. power markets, prices can rise to ten or even more than twenty times their normal levels during supply shortages. Conversely, during periods of excess supply, prices may fall to negative levels. Such large price fluctuations reflect differences in supply-demand conditions and the value of electricity at different times.
The carbon-emission attribute of electricity refers to the carbon emissions associated with power production. Traditional thermal power relies on the combustion of fossil fuels and results in high carbon emissions, causing significant environmental impacts. Each kilowatt-hour of coal-fired electricity emits approximately 0.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide, whereas renewable wind and solar power generate almost no carbon emissions.
Therefore, it is imperative to accelerate the adoption of temporal and spatial electricity carbon factors and establish internationally recognized standards for electric carbon accounting as soon as possible, in order to accurately reflect variations across different times and regions and effectively guide electricity production and consumption toward greener and more efficient outcomes.
The new perspective on electricity will encourage power generation companies to place greater emphasis on the development and utilization of renewable energy, increase investment in wind and solar power projects, and continuously raise the share of green electricity in the power supply. Through both direct and indirect electrification, decarbonization and a transition toward zero carbon can be achieved across all sectors. Fully recognizing the temporal and carbon-emission attributes of electricity will also guide users to rationally adjust electricity consumption behavior-encouraging increased consumption when green power supply is abundant and electricity prices are low, and reduce demand when thermal power dominates and prices are high－thereby promoting the absorption of green electricity and effectively balancing power supply and demand.
(2) New perspective of energy efficiency
In traditional energy systems, fossil energy resources are non-renewable. The more completely they are combusted and the higher the conversion efficiency, the lower the costs and environmental externalities, and consequently the lower the cost of power generation. Therefore, improving energy efficiency has been regarded as the highest priority. However, in the renewable energy systems dominated by wind and solar power, this traditional concept of energy efficiency is no longer fully applicable, making it imperative to establish a new cognitive framework for energy efficiency. The energy provided by the sun is essentially free, and electricity generated from wind and solar power is virtually inexhaustible, characterized by a unique “zero marginal cost”. At the same time, wind and solar power are inherently intermittent and variable. Therefore, in a renewable-based energy system, it is necessary to move beyond a single-dimensional focus on energy efficiency and shift from a singular emphasis on “physical efficiency” to a multi-dimensional notion of “system effectiveness”. Under this new perspective, energy efficiency should not be defined by the efficiency of individual devices, but by the overall effectiveness of renewable energy utilization, including environmental effectiveness, energy-security effectiveness, and other system-level benefits. The key objective is not merely to generate renewable electricity, but to use it effectively, ensuring that every kilowatt-hour of electricity flows to the most appropriate place, at the most appropriate time, and at the most appropriate price.
To absorb surplus wind and solar power, technologies such as water electrolysis for hydrogen production, electricity-to-green-fuel conversion, energy storage for peak shaving, and cross-regional power transmission inevitably incur a certain amount of energy loss. Nevertheless, these approaches effectively avoid the waste of unused wind and solar energy and create new pathways for shifting energy across time and space and accommodating renewable generation. This new perspective on energy efficiency will promote the integration and utilization of wind and solar power and accelerate the non-electric applications of renewable energy.
(3) New perspective of energy security
Traditional power systems, dominated by thermal power, operate on a “generation-follows-load” principle. Power supply adjusts to changes in demand, utilizing the stability and controllability of thermal power generation to meet society’s electricity demand. As renewable energy sources such as wind and solar gradually become the mainstay of the energy mix, the operational mode of power systems will be upended, shifting from the traditional “generation-follows-load” to “load-follows-generation.” This transformation requires the demand side to possess strong regulation and adjustment capabilities, proactively adapting to the variability and intermittency of wind and solar output. During periods of peak wind and solar power generation, loads must be adjusted or aggregated to fully absorb renewable electricity; during generation troughs, the flexibility of the demand side must be mobilized to ensure overall power balance.
Therefore, it is necessary to abandon the entrenched notion that “renewable energy must operate in the same way as traditional energy in order to be safe”. Because wind and solar energy are inherently variable, the traditional one-way, rigid “generation–transmission– distribution–consumption” system is incapable of maintaining real-time supply–demand balance. A new power system with renewables as the mainstay must be “flexible”. It must rely on big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to establish more flexible operating modes and more powerful regulation mechanisms, and to build a secure operating system suited to the dominant role of renewable energy, rather than forcing, or attempting, to make renewables mimic the operating patterns of traditional energy sources.
On the energy supply side, it is necessary to strengthen the flexible retrofitting of thermal power plants to enhance their peak-shaving capabilities, enabling them to operate synergistically with wind and solar power. Furthermore, greater investment should be made in the development and application of source-side energy storage technologies—including short-duration storage such as flywheels and batteries, as well as long-duration storage such as pumped hydro, hydrogen, and green fuels. These measures will help mitigate the fluctuations of renewable energy generation, address the balance between power supply and demand, and ensure the security of electricity supply. On the demand side, efforts should be made to encourage diverse user-side resources, such as industrial loads, air conditioning loads, user-side energy storage, virtual power plants (VPPs), distributed generation, electric vehicles (EVs), and microgrids, to participate in demand response. Electricity price signals can guide users to adjust consumption behavior: reducing load during periods of tight supply and increasing load when supply is abundant, thereby achieving dynamic balance between electricity supply and demand.
This new perspective of energy security will foster a more intelligent, digitalized power grid, along with new formats and business models such as multi-energy complementarity, virtual power plants, commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage, V2G, and load aggregation. This will impose transformative requirements on system planning and design, operational control, and market mechanisms of the entire system, ensuring energy supply security under high-proportion renewable energy penetration while reducing the security costs of the power system.
3 Conclusions and outlook
Due to the volatility and intermittency of new energy sources such as wind and solar, the operation and management of a renewable-dominated energy system cannot rely on rigid planning; instead, it must be inherently “flexible,” requiring more agile operational methods and stronger regulatory tools. In this context, the “invisible hand” of the electricity market will play an increasingly important role, allowing electricity prices to accurately reflect market supply and demand as well as carbon abatement costs. Furthermore, a diversified electricity pricing mechanism should be established to support the normalized and market-oriented participation of demand-side resources in power system peak shaving, thereby optimizing the allocation of energy resources and reducing the security costs of the power system.
In pursuit of carbon neutrality goal, the cornerstone of the Third Energy Revolution is renewable energy, with the core objectives being the “electrification of energy” and the “zero-carbonization of electricity.” This requires a systematic rethinking of traditional energy cognitive frameworks, development pathways, and evaluation systems, as well as the establishment of new perspectives on power, energy efficiency, and energy security that are compatible with a renewable-dominated energy system.
This energy revolution represents an unprecedented transformation in the energy sector in centuries. Global efforts are required to advance this transition, including the sharing and exchange of knowledge and information, capacity-building initiatives, and equitable resource allocation, in order to achieve carbon neutrality and net-zero goals.
JOURNAL
ENGINEERING Energy
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-026-1056-2
Article Link
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11708-026-1056-2
Cite this article
Huang Z. The unprecedented transformation in energy: The Third Energy Revolution toward carbon neutrality. ENGINEERING Energy. 2026;20(1):10562.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-026-1056-2
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