Energy grids and networks articles from across Nature Portfolio

The importance of renewable integration into grids came to the forefront in 2025. New challenges in stability, storage, artificial intelligence demand and policy changes defined a year that tested whether power systems can become reliable, flexible and equitable in a net-zero world.

Yue Xiang and colleagues propose an adaptive hierarchical learning framework to address implicit uncertainties in distributed energy resource planning when third-party operators lack full grid visibility. Their method co-optimizes investment and operational decisions data-drivenly, reducing costs while maintaining voltage stability without relying on predefined scenarios or model simplifications.

The transition to low-carbon energy resources necessitates resilient power grids capable of handling low-inertia system dynamics. This Perspective proposes an Internet-inspired power system set-up composed of independent, asynchronous compartments able to balance energy across the entire grid.

This Focus issue explores how intelligent power systems and sustainable energy technologies are driving the transition toward net-zero emissions.

The importance of renewable integration into grids came to the forefront in 2025. New challenges in stability, storage, artificial intelligence demand and policy changes defined a year that tested whether power systems can become reliable, flexible and equitable in a net-zero world.

A study in Nature Energy reports a software-based approach that allows AI data centres to operate as flexible, grid-aware loads, reducing power demand during peak periods without compromising performance.

An article in Nature Cities assesses the deployable potential of rooftop solar photovoltaics across Chinese cities, finding that only 42% of the national technical potential is realistically deployable.

Efficient, safe and low-cost energy storage technologies are essential as renewable energy increasingly powers the grid.

The increasing demand for data centres risks greatly increasing greenhouse gas emissions. To prevent this problem from happening, data centres need to transition from being consumers to being prosumers.