sustainability

Article
Analysis of Research Topics and Scientific
Collaborations in Renewable Energy Using
Community Detection
Alfredo Alcayde 1 , Francisco G. Montoya 1 , Raul Baños 1 , Alberto-Jesús Perea-Moreno 2, *
and Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro 1
1 Department of Engineering, University of Almeria, ceiA3, 04120 Almeria, Spain; [email protected] (A.A.);
[email protected] (F.G.M.); [email protected] (R.B.); [email protected] (F.M.-A.)
2 Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Córdoba, ceiA3, Campus de Rabanales,
14071 Córdoba, Spain
* Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +34-957-212-633




Received: 21 November 2018; Accepted: 27 November 2018; Published: 30 November 2018


Abstract: Renewable energy is a key breakthrough to mitigate carbon emissions, to reduce global
warming, and for the creation of sustainable societies. Renewable energy is a broad area that includes
different technologies that are being continuously improved to increase their efficiency and reduce
cost. Many papers have been published in the last decades dealing with renewable energy issues,
which is why it becomes important to determine the main topics of research, the main publications
devoted to publishing scientific papers about renewable energy, and how researchers collaborate
in this discipline. With these aims in view, this paper presents an advanced method for analysing
publications about renewable energy and scientific collaboration networks in this field. This method
is based on automatically obtaining bibliographic data from scientific publications through the use of
the Scopus Database API Interface, which are then analysed using community detection algorithms
and graph visualization software. The results obtained show that it is possible to determine the main
areas of research activity as well as to identify the structures of the collaboration network in the field
of renewable energy.

Keywords: renewable energy; sustainability; research activity; scientific collaborations; complex

networks; community detection

1. Introduction
The worldwide consumption of primary energy in 2016 was assessed at ~13,276.3 million Tonnes
of Oil Equivalent (TOE) [1]. According to its origin, the consumption is distributed as follows,
oil 4418.2 (33.28%), natural gas 3204.1 (24.13%), coal 3732.0 (28.11%), nuclear energy 592.1 (4.46%),
hydroelectricity 910.3 (6.86%), and renewable energy 419.6 (3.16%). This dataset evidences that the
contribution of renewable energy to the overall consumption is still low.
Renewable energy is a key breakthrough to mitigate carbon emissions, to reduce global warming
and for the creation of sustainable societies. The main renewable energy sources and their energy
conversion or usage forms are solar (photovoltaic and thermal power generation and water heaters),
wind (power generation, wind generators, windmills, and water pumps), modern biomass (heat and
power generation, pyrolysis, gasification, and anaerobic digestion), geothermal (urban heating, power
generation, hydrothermal, and hot dry rock), ocean (tidal and wave power). Hydropower in rivers
is often included in the group of renewable energies, although it often requires large infrastructures
(dams) with negative environmental effects at a local level [2]. While the technological advances in

Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510; doi:10.3390/su10124510 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 2 of 17

hydropower generation have not been very significant in the last years given the maturity of this
technology, other renewable energies, such as photovoltaic, wind, and biomass have had a considerable
development thanks to the technological innovation [3]. On the other hand, geothermal energy, tidal,
and wave power still require 31 important technological developments to be economically profitable.
In addition, the study of renewable energies is often associated with a multitude of facets that are not
only in the strict field of energy generation, but also key aspects such as energy saving, the conservation
or storage of this energy, or the integration of distributed generation from renewable energy sources [4].
Renewable energies can be used as “raw materials” to produce hydrogen. The implementation of
hydrogen as an energy source is another of the solutions along with renewable energies. This is known
as “the hydrogen economy”, a term currently used to refer to the alternative economic model to the
use of fossil fuels mainly to be used in transportation [5,6]. This chemical element, as an energy vector,
will revolutionize the immediate future. The technology used to obtain hydrogen has been developed
for approximately three centuries, but it has been since the last few decades that it has been projected
as a viable solution to the world’s energy problems and to the environmental problems caused by the
oil economy. Hydrogen as a fuel can be used in different ways: to generate electricity or to generate
movement in internal combustion engines; in the market there are several alternatives to cars that use
fossil fuels and instead use hydrogen as an energy source [7–10].
Renewable energy generation does not alter the thermal balance of the Earth or generate
irretrievable waste, and the speed of its consumption does not exceed the speed of regeneration
of the energy source and the raw material used in it. Historically, renewable energy technologies
and costs of production involved that renewable energy projects typically came with a relatively low
internal rate of return. But it must be clarified that these costs are internal to the energy system and
do not consider external factors, including those environmental issues derived from the impact of
exploitation of energy sources.
The promotion of renewable energy was largely neglected in the past, but nowadays it is one
of the main pillars of the energy policy agenda in countries around the world [11]. In fact, policy
support based on feed-in tariffs and feed-in premiums, together with fast decline in the costs of solar
photovoltaic power and wind turbines in the last years, have allowed that solar and wind projects now
become economically viable and adequate to repay project costs. There are important demographic
and socioeconomic factors that determine the knowledge on different forms of renewable energy [12].
In any case, social acceptance of renewable energy [13] as a replacement for fossil fuels in electricity
production should consider that for renewable technologies to continue growing their market share,
they need to coexist with fossil fuel technologies [14]. In any case, it is important to promote efficient
strategies to make renewable energy sources compatible with economic growth [15]. According to
the United Nations (UN), sustainable energy is the main contributor to climate change and accounts
for ~60% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the UN states that fossil fuels have
long been the main source of electricity, generating large quantities of greenhouse gases [16]. In this
sense, they recommend increasing the use of renewable energy sources for the creation of sustainable
societies and even more so when electricity consumption is increasing rapidly.
Every year, prestigious international journals publish a large number of review articles with the
aim of finding out about the technological innovations and research trends in the field of renewable
energy. Most of these reviews focus on classifying and structurally listing the papers published so far.
Other researchers have presented bibliometric studies about the publications retrieved from databases,
such that bibliometric indicators are used as a tool for research performance evaluation. A major
drawback of these indicators is that in the search for simplicity, important details are missed. Moreover,
the volume of published research papers grows year after year at such a rate that the analysis of these
publications has become a rather complex task.
This research fills an unexplored gap in the reviews of the field of renewable energy since it
applies community detection algorithms to analyse the scientific publications in order to determine
the most important areas of investigation in renewable energy, as well as to highlight the existing
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 3 of 17

worldwide relationships between researchers. As a prerequisite for carrying out the study, it has been
determined that it is necessary to make use of a reference database that allows an exhaustive analysis
of all published papers in a wide interval of time. In particular, it is argued that it is possible to obtain
detailed information on existing publications in the field of renewable energies retrieved from the
Scopus database and to use community detection algorithms and graph visualisation tools to know
with a high level of detail and in a very intuitive way which are the existing lines of research, as well
as the networks of scientific collaborations around the world.
Some bibliometric studies dealing with renewable energy have been presented [17,18], but to
our knowledge, none of them have investigated the whole network of publications about renewable
energy in order to identify neither the areas of interest of the scientific community nor the scientific
collaboration networks. For this reason, the novelty of the proposed study comes from the fact that all
the published scientific work on renewable energies is analysed, while at the same time community
detection techniques are applied to scientifically establish which are the groupings or clusters to
classify these studies. This may make it possible to find areas of cooperation that have not yet been
consolidated and that need to be covered from a scientific point of view. The originality of this study
consists in identifying the gaps or scientific needs of the problem studied, which is the relationship
between the works published on renewable energies, since these are of great relevance in our society.
Once the possible gaps or improvements are detected as a result of this analysis, we will contribute in
terms of knowledge and applicability, opening new fields of study for researchers specialised in energy.
The aim of this work is to analyse all the world scientific publications of renewable energy indexed
in the Scopus database in order to study the most important areas of investigation in renewable energy,
as well as to highlight the existing worldwide relationships between researchers and institutions.
An important question here is how to analyse networks of publications and coauthorship in networks
having thousands of nodes. Having in mind that a common feature of scientific collaboration networks
is their complexity as well as the existence of internal structures or communities [19], community
detection algorithms are applied. Community detection is an important problem that is based on the
existence of groups of nodes within a largest network that are connected in a denser way than the rest
of the nodes pertaining to the network [20]. Therefore, the nodes that belong to the same community
have a greater connectivity and a higher probability of presenting similar characteristics, i.e., the nodes
of a given community would have special relationships [21].
The rest of the paper is organisesed as follows. Section 2 describes the methodology of the
study, including how to retrieve information from Scopus using the Scopus Database API Interface.
Section 3 presents the results obtained from the Scopus database and discusses the utility of community
detection to analyse a large volume of publications. The main conclusions of this research are provided
in Section 4.

2. Materials and Methods

Scopus and Web of Science are multidisciplinary abstract and citation indexes providing useful
information on papers published on journals, books, and conferences. Web of Science (WoS) was
created in 1960, while Scopus was introduced by Elsevier in 2004, although it covers publications from
1996 [22]. The coverage between the two databases has been deeply studied, as well as the features
and citation analysis capabilities of Scopus and WoS. In fact, the coverage of journals in Scopus is
slightly higher (20,346 journals) than in WoS (13,605 journals) [23], with high correlations between the
measures obtained with both databases for the number of papers, the number of citations received
by countries, and their ranks. Previous bibliometric studies have also used the Scopus database to
retrieve information about renewable energy [24].

2.1. Retrieving Information Using Automated Scripts

In order to retrieve and analyse those publications indexed in the Scopus database related to
renewable energy, data extraction has been automatised by implementing specific software.
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This software bot, called Research Network Bot (ResNetBot), perform queries to obtain records
(articles,
This authors,
softwareand bot,institutions)
called Research using the Scopus
Network Database API
Bot (ResNetBot), Interface
perform [25]. to
queries The operation
obtain of
records
ResNetBot
(articles, can be and
authors, divided into three
institutions) phases
using (Figure Database
the Scopus 1): (1) Retrieving information
API Interface [25]. The about all the
operation
documents
of ResNetBotcontaining ’renewable
can be divided energy’
into three phases in (Figure
the title1):or(1)keywords.
RetrievingWith this information,
information about all the it
constructs acontaining
documents graph where nodes represent
’renewable energy’ inpublications and edgesWith
the title or keywords. between two nodes indicate
this information, one of
it constructs a
them cites the other one. (2) Retrieving information of all the authors of the papers processed in step
graph where nodes represent publications and edges between two nodes indicate one of them cites the
(1), including
other the uniqueinformation
one. (2) Retrieving author identification numberofprovided
of all the authors the papersbyprocessed
Scopus, affiliations, publications
in step (1), including the
and dates,
unique number
author of citations,
identification and h-index.
number provided(3) byConstruct the collaboration
Scopus, affiliations, network
publications andby considering
dates, number
thecitations,
of authors and
thath-index.
have published any paper
(3) Construct containing network
the collaboration ’renewable energy’ in the
by considering thetitle or keywords.
authors that have
For all authors
published information
any paper containingis stored about
’renewable the number
energy’ of author–coauthor
in the title or keywords. For collaborations and the
all authors information
affiliations,
is city,the
stored about and country
number ofof these colleagues.
author–coauthor This information
collaborations is used
and the to construct
affiliations, a graph
city, and where
country of
nodescolleagues.
these represent This
the researchers
information and edges
is used betweena graph
to construct two nodes
whereindicate they have
nodes represent the coauthored
researchers
(collaborated
and in) at two
edges between leastnodes
one paper.
indicate they have coauthored (collaborated in) at least one paper.

Figure 1.
Figure 1. Scheme
Scheme of
of ResNetBot operation.
ResNetBot operation.

The
The retrieved
retrieved data
data was
was structured according to
structured according to the
the corresponding fields and
corresponding fields and stored
stored as
as aa set
set of
of
plain-text files using the JSON format [26]. It is usual to find inconsistencies in large databases
plain-text files using the JSON format [26]. It is usual to find inconsistencies in large databases that that
contain
contain aa huge
hugeamount
amountofofinformation
informationfromfroma variety
a varietyof of
sources [27].
sources ForFor
[27]. example,
example, when inspecting
when the
inspecting
keywords from publications, expressions with the same meaning can be written
the keywords from publications, expressions with the same meaning can be written in different in different manners,
e.g., ‘Renewable
manners, energy’ or energy’
e.g., ‘Renewable ‘Renewable energies’. To
or ‘Renewable overcome
energies’. To these inconsistencies,
overcome ResNetBot
these inconsistencies,
applies different refinement algorithms from the OpenRefine software [28].
ResNetBot applies different refinement algorithms from the OpenRefine software [28]. Finally,Finally, they are used
they
spreadsheets to organise
are used spreadsheets to the refined
organise theinformation and identify
refined information andunique
identifyvalues.
unique values.
2.2. Community Detection
2.2. Community Detection
All complex systems share a common characteristic: community structures [29]. Communities
All complex systems share a common characteristic: community structures [29]. Communities
consist of groups of nodes inside a network that are more densely connected with each other than
consist of groups of nodes inside a network that are more densely connected with each other than
with the remaining nodes of the network. As the nodes belonging to the same community have a
with the remaining nodes of the network. As the nodes belonging to the same community have a
higher likelihood of interaction, detecting those communities can reveal characteristics or functional
higher likelihood of interaction, detecting those communities can reveal characteristics or functional
relationships in a given network. Community detection is an important problem that is based on the
relationships in a given network. Community detection is an important problem that is based on the
existence of groups of nodes within the largest network that are connected in a denser way than the rest
existence of groups of nodes within the largest network that are connected in a denser way than the
of the nodes pertaining to the network [20]. Therefore, the nodes that belong to the same community
rest of the nodes pertaining to the network [20]. Therefore, the nodes that belong to the same
have a greater connectivity and a higher probability of presenting similar characteristics, i.e., the nodes
community have a greater connectivity and a higher probability of presenting similar characteristics,
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 5 of 17

of a given community would have special relationships [21]. Therefore, the community detection
problem consists of partitioning the nodes into groups such that there are many edges connecting
nodes within the same group, and comparatively few edges connecting nodes in different groups [29].
Research communities can be detected using community detection methods to group authors,
journals, etc., with the aim of identifying patterns of community interactions [30]. In our case, it is
considered that the nodes are publications, while edges represent that one of these papers has cited
to the other one, such that the communities would represent groups of papers that often cite papers
of the same community [19]. Other option is to consider that the nodes are researchers, while edges
represent that two researchers have coauthored one or several papers, such that communities would
represent groups of researchers that collaborate more frequently with each other [31]. This is particularly
interesting considering that there is an increasing tendency across scientific disciplines to write
multi-authored papers [32] such that the average number of coauthors per paper gradually increases [33].
This implies an increasing degree of scientific cooperation, that could be due to several reasons, e.g.,
many investigations requires the participation of different specialists of the same or different disciplines
and the use of high-cost scientific equipment from several institutions.
Having in mind that a common feature of scientific collaboration networks is their complexity
as well as the existence of internal structures or communities [19], community detection algorithms
are applied. Most optimisation methods often apply modularity to detect communities in networks.
Modularity [34] is the most extensively applied objective function in community detection due to its
simplicity and ease of calculation. Modularity provides a numerical value that represents the quality
of the solution, such that the greater the value is, the more accurate the community structure.

2.3. Comparison with Other Approaches

Although tens of thousands of review articles have been published in different fields of research,
only a few studies have analysed the possibilities offered using community detection techniques
for analysing and visualizing citation networks [30,35]. However, from the analysis of the existing
publications in Scopus, it is possible to conclude that the use of these methods for detecting
communities of authors and identifying research topics related to renewable energies has not been
investigated, but almost all publications on this subject correspond to standard bibliometric studies.
For example, a past paper [36] presented a systematic literature review to identify and evaluate the
current state of knowledge on the drivers and barriers of countries’ decision-making processes related
to renewable energy deployment using. With this aim, these authors performed manual searches using
different search terms and applying filters such as the years of publication or language. As result,
a total of 60 academic manuscripts from Science Direct, JSTOR, and Google Scholar where included in
this review. In another previous work [37], the authors presented a bibliometric analysis that allowed
the identification of key concepts used in scientific literature on the integration of variable renewable
energy into power networks using the Scopus database. Scopus has also been used by other researchers
to review the literature related to the diffusion of profitable renewable energy businesses [38]. Other
studies have recently reviewed the literature in the intersection of renewable energies and politics [39],
which included a total of 853 publications retrieved from a systematic review by searching in WoS the
papers with the words “renewable energy” and “politics” or “renewable energy policies” between
1998 and 2017.
In summary, when comparing the model proposed here with other review articles on different
topics in the field of renewable energy recently published, it is observed that the latter focus on
systematic reviews from searches in specialised databases, while our method is significantly more
advanced since it incorporates two considerable improvements: the extraction of data is automatic
using the ResNetBot software; the thousands of publications obtained by ResNetBot are classified
using community detection algorithms and graph visualization tools (Gephi).
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 6 of 17
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3. Results
3. Results and
and Discussion
Discussion
The query
The query performed
performed in in Scopus
Scopus byby end
end of
of 2017
2017 about
about ‘renewable
‘renewable energy’ returned 24,152
energy’ returned 24,152 records
records
for
for documents, which were coauthored by 46,741 researchers from 23,092 different affiliations of
documents, which were coauthored by 46,741 researchers from 23,092 different affiliations of 156
156
countries. In
countries. In order
order toto inspect
inspect these
these large
large numbers
numbers of of publications,
publications, thethe query
query used
used Gephi
Gephi [40],
[40], one
one of
of
the most widely used graph visualization tools. Gephi is open source and allows to study in detail
the most widely used graph visualization tools. Gephi is open source and allows to study in detail the
the characteristics
characteristics of network
of the the network graphs
graphs by using
by using multiple
multiple features,
features, suchsuch as modifying
as modifying the colour
the colour or
or size
size of vertices according some customised criteria, includes statistical metrics to define topological
of vertices according some customised criteria, includes statistical metrics to define topological and
and relational
relational characteristics
characteristics amongamongvertices.vertices.
Moreover, Moreover, Gephi community
Gephi includes includes community detection
detection algorithms
algorithms based on modularity.
based on modularity.
Figure 22 shows
Figure shows the the graph
graph representing
representing the the documents
documents about about renewable
renewable energy.
energy. FromFrom thethe
viewpoint of the connectivity, these publications can be classified into two groups: those belonging
viewpoint of the connectivity, these publications can be classified into two groups: those belonging to
to the
the innerinner subnetwork
subnetwork (11,714 (11,714 documents),
documents), and thoseandthat
those
havethat have no connection
no connection with the innerwithdocuments
the inner
documents (12,438 documents). It is clarified that isolated nodes or groups located in the outer
(12,438 documents). It is clarified that isolated nodes or groups located in the outer circle circle
neither
neither cite to the inner documents nor are cited by the latter ones. Probably, most of these nodes
cite to the inner documents nor are cited by the latter ones. Probably, most of these nodes (papers)
(papers) belonging
belonging to the
to the outer outer
circle circle’renewable
include include ’renewable
energy’ in energy’ in their
their title title or keywords,
or keywords, but theybut they
inspect
inspect this topic superficially, then including a few references about renewable energy that are
this topic superficially, then including a few references about renewable energy that are not not
in the
in thesubnetwork.
inner inner subnetwork.

Figure 2.
Figure 2. Network
Network structure
structure of
of documents
documents related
related to
to renewable
renewable energy
energy indexed
indexed by
by Scopus.
Scopus.

This section
This section may
may be
be divided
divided by by subheadings.
subheadings. It
It should
should provide
provide aa concise
concise and
and precise
precise description
description
of the
of the experimental
experimental results,
results, their
theirinterpretation
interpretationasaswell
wellasasthe
theexperimental
experimental conclusions that
conclusions cancan
that be
drawn.
be drawn.

3.1. Trending Topics in Renewable Energy

An important goal of this investigation is to determine the trending topics in renewable energy.
This is not straightforward given the large number of articles of different topics. Fortunately,
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 7 of 17

3.1. Trending Topics in Renewable Energy

An important goal of this investigation is to determine the trending topics in renewable energy.
This is not straightforward given the large number of articles of different topics. Fortunately, keywords
allowSustainability
to unveil2018,general topics
10, x FOR PEER because
REVIEW authors usually include those that contain relevant 7words of 18 or
phrases to allocate their publication to the subjects that they consider more appropriate [41].
keywords
If one wasallow to unveil
to pay general
attention to topics because
the 11,714 authors
inner usually include
documents, those that contain
the community relevant
detection reveals
words or phrases to allocate their publication to the subjects that they consider
32 communities, which are highlighted using different colours in Figure 3. The most used keywords more appropriate [41].
included in If one
the 10was to pay
major attention to the
communities 11,714ininner
labelled documents,
this figure the community
are listed in Table 1, detection reveals 32 are
where communities
communities, which are highlighted using different colours in Figure 3. The most used keywords
identified with a descriptive title and the 15 most common keywords. The main communities detected
included in the 10 major communities labelled in this figure are listed in Table 1, where communities
are: Hybrid systems, Electric vehicle and storage, Policy regulations, Distributed generation in smart
are identified with a descriptive title and the 15 most common keywords. The main communities
grid, detected
Sustainability, Usage
are: Hybrid in data
systems, centres,
Electric Economic
vehicle issues
and storage, or Econometrics,
Policy Biomass,
regulations, Distributed Marine and
generation
ocean,inand Water
smart grid,desalination.
Sustainability,Contrary
Usage intodata what one might
centres, Economicthink, thereorare
issues no specific communities
Econometrics, Biomass,
Marinesolar
regarding and ocean,
or wind, andbut
Water
theydesalination. Contraryissues
are cross-cutting to what inone mightcommunities.
several think, there areAnother
no specific of the
most communities
relevant aspects regarding solar
of this or wind, butisthey
methodology are cross-cutting
to examine issues inbetween
the proximity several communities.
certain scientific
Another of
communities, asthe most relevant
example between aspects of this methodology
Distributed generation in is to examine
smart gridthe
and proximity between certain
Hybrid systems. Regarding
scientific communities, as example between Distributed generation
sustainability research, indicate that it is found near two other areas such as Economic in smart grid and Hybrid
issues and
Policysystems. Regarding
regulations. On the sustainability
other hand, research,
it can be indicate
noted that
that itsomeis found near two are
communities other areas suchseparate
somewhat as
Economic issues and Policy regulations. On the other hand, it can be noted that some communities
from the rest, which suggests that they are authors who may come from different areas of work and
are somewhat separate from the rest, which suggests that they are authors who may come from
are therefore not yet integrated into the core, for example Water desalination, Usage in data centres or
different areas of work and are therefore not yet integrated into the core, for example Water
Econometrics.
desalination, This highlights
Usage in datathat theseorareas
centres are open to
Econometrics. research
This or cooperation
highlights by those
that these areas involved
are open to in
otherresearch
related or research areas.
cooperation by those involved in other related research areas.

FigureFigure 3. Community
3. Community detection
detection applied
applied to the
to the connected
connected networkofofpublications
network publications in
in renewable
renewableenergy.
energy.
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 8 of 17

Table 1. Most common keywords of the ten largest communities detected.

Distributed Smart Usage in Data
Hybrid Systems Electric Vehicle Policy Regulations Sustainability Economic Issues Biomass Marine and Ocean Water Desalination
Grid Generation in Centres
1 Optimization Smart grid Feed-in tariff Microgrid Willingness to pay Data center Economic growth Biomass Wave energy Desalination
Sustainable
2 Microgrid Energy storage Energy policy Distributed generation Smart grid Granger causality Gasification Wave power Reverse osmosis
development
Sustainable
3 Fuel cell Electric vehicle Climate change Smart grid Energy policy Energy efficiency Biodiesel Tidal energy Solar energy
development
4 Hybrid system Optimization Energy efficiency Energy storage Social acceptance Cloud computing Biomass Malaysia Ocean energy Photovoltaic
Distributed Renewable portfolio Power Pressure retarded
5 Hydrogen Power quality Sustainability CO2 emissions Biogas Tidal power
generation standard management osmosis
Green Energy Environmental
6 HOMER Microgrid Real options Optimization Contingent valuation Biofuels Wind energy
communications consumption impact
Distributed generation Salinity gradient
7 Energy storage District heating Electricity Climate change Microgrid Nuclear energy Palm oil Offshore wind
(DG) power
Distributed Wave energy Reverse
8 Demand response Electricity market Energy storage system Energy transition Energy storage Energy efficiency Energy efficiency
generation converter electrodialysis
Hybrid power Anaerobic
9 Energy efficiency Innovation Power electronics Attitudes Energy harvesting Solar energy Power generation Wind power
system digestion
Hybrid energy Energy system
10 China Demand response Community Green computing Growth Energy policy Hydropower Solar pond
system analysis
Demand side Environmental
11 Smart grid Sustainability Fuel cell Energy efficiency Scheduling Panel cointegration Feed-in tariff Optimization
management impact assessment
Wave energy
12 Electrolyzer Hydrogen European Union Power systems Planning Battery China Sustainability Geothermal energy
converters
Energy Tradable green Battery energy storage Offshore wind
13 Vehicle to grid NIMBY Sustainability Panel data Energy Seawater
management certificates system energy
14 Simulation Electricity market Policy DC-DC converter Education Cellular networks Miscanthus Pyrolysis Climate change Energy recovery
Lyapunov
15 Rural electrification V2G Germany Battery Participation Trade Hydrogen Tidal Brackish water
optimization
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 9 of 17

3.2. Type of Publication

Most of the retrieved documents were published in specialised journals or conference proceedings.
Table 2 shows the top 15 journals that have published more articles including ’renewable energy’ in
the title or keywords. The percentages are calculated over the total number of articles published
in journals.
Figure 4 shows the network structure of all papers published in journals, conference proceedings,
etc. A zoom was made to a specific area for more detail. It is observed that the pink dots (’Renewable
and Sustainable Energy Reviews’) play a central role, maybe because this journal is focused on reviews
and therefore are cited from all branches of renewable energies. Moreover, green dots (’Energy Policy’),
light blue dots (’Renewable Energy’), orange dots (’Applied Energy’), and dark dots (’Energy’) are also
close together, probably because they have the same type of scope—more general compared to the
other journals—and therefore they are very much at the core of the network.

Table 2. List of journals with more papers including ’renewable energy’ in their title or keywords.

Journal Name # Papers Quota (%)

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 1300 9.35
Renewable Energy 885 6.37
Energy Policy 814 5.86
Energy 431 3.10
Applied Energy 335 2.41
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 206 1.48
Energy Conversion and Management 195 1.40
Biomass and Bioenergy 117 0.84
Journal of Cleaner Production 110 0.79
Energy Economics 108 0.78
Energy and Buildings 102 0.73
Energies 95 0.68
Desalination 94 0.68
Solar Energy 87 0.63
International Journal of Renewable Energy Research 84 0.60

On the other hand, Table 3 presents a similar ranking about the publications in conference
proceedings. In general, the publications in conferences are more equally distributed than in journals,
such that the first of them does not reach 4% of the total, whereas the three first journals constituted
more than 5% of the total of journal publications in this topic.
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 10 of 17
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Figure
Figure 4. Most
4. Most relevant
relevant journals
journals ininthe
thefield
fieldof
of renewable
renewable energy
energyaccording to the
according number
to the of papers
number of papers
including ’renewable energy’ in the title or keywords.
including ’renewable energy’ in the title or keywords.

TableOn the of
3. List other hand, Table
conference 3 presents
proceedings witha more
similar ranking
papers about ’renewable
including the publications in in
energy’ conference
their title
proceedings.
or keywords. In general, the publications in conferences are more equally distributed than in journals,
such that the first of them does not reach 4% of the total, whereas the three first journals constituted
more than 5% of the total of journal publicationsName
Conference/Proceedings in this topic. # Papers Quota (%)
Energy Procedia 312 3.97
Table and
IEEE Power 3. List of conference
Energy proceedings
Society General with more papers including ’renewable energy’
Meeting in their title2.96
232
or keywords.
IET Conference Publications 123 1.57
Proceedings of the Universities Power Engineering Conference 96 1.22
ASEE Annual Conference andConference/Proceedings Name
Exposition Conference Proceedings # PapersQuota (%)
93 1.18
Energy Procedia
International Conference on the European Energy Market, EEM 312
86 3.97 1.10
IECON IEEE Power and(Industrial
Proceedings Energy Society GeneralConference)
Electronics Meeting 232
72 2.96 0.92
WorldIET Conference
Renewable Publications
Energy Forum, WREF 123
71 1.57 0.90
Proceedings of the Universities Power
IFAC Proceedings Volumes (IFAC-PapersOnline) Engineering Conference 96
69 1.22 0.88
ASEEConference
European Annual Conference
on Powerand Exposition
Electronics Conference
and Proceedings
Applications, EPE-ECCE Europe 93
63 1.18 0.80
International
Asia-Pacific PowerConference
and EnergyonEngineering
the European Energy Market,
Conference, EEM
APPEEC 86
61 1.10 0.78
IECON
European Proceedings
Conference (Industrial
on Power Electronics
Electronics andConference)
Applications, EPE 72
61 0.92 0.78
World
Procedia Renewable Energy Forum, WREF
Engineering 7155 0.90 0.70
IFAC Proceedings
International ConferenceVolumes (IFAC-PapersOnline)
on Renewable Energy Research and Applications, ICRERA 6952 0.88 0.66
European
IEEE Energy ConferenceCongress
Conversion, on PowerandElectronics and Applications,
Exposition, ECCE EPE-ECCE Europe 63
49 0.80 0.62
Asia-Pacific Power and Energy Engineering Conference, APPEEC 61 0.78
European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, EPE 61 0.78
3.3. Authors, Affiliations, and Countries in Renewable Energy
Procedia Engineering 55 0.70
International
Figure 5 showsConference on Renewable
the relationship Energyauthors
between Researchthat
and Applications, ICRERApapers
have coauthored 52 with 0.66’renewable
IEEE Energy Conversion, Congress and Exposition, ECCE 49 0.62
energy’ in the title or keywords. In total, 46,471 authors are distributed in three layers: The outermost
layer includes the authors who publish alone (5.67%); the intermediate zone (71.50%), where there are
already collaborations between a few authors; and the inner layer (22.83%) that constitutes the core of
the network of scientific collaborations in renewable energy.
 Sustainability 2018, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 18

Sustainability3.3. Authors,
2018, Affiliations, and Countries in Renewable Energy
10, 4510 11 of 17

Figure 5 shows the relationship between authors that have coauthored papers with ’renewable
energy’ in the title or keywords. In total, 46,471 authors are distributed in three layers: The outermost
Figure 6 shows
layer includesthe
the relationship
authors who publishbetweenaloneauthors
(5.67%); thebyintermediate
countries (inner layer),where
zone (71.50%), where each colour
there
indicates aare already It
country. collaborations
is observedbetween
that the a few authors;
scientific and the inner
production inlayer (22.83%)energy
renewable that constitutes
is led bytheresearchers
coreacademic
affiliated to of the network
andofresearch
scientific collaborations
institutionsinfromrenewable energy. States (12.6 %), China (8.8%), and
the United
Figure 6 shows the relationship between authors by countries (inner layer), where each colour
United Kingdom (8.7%). In the right part of the same figure the same network is represented disabling
indicates a country. It is observed that the scientific production in renewable energy is led by
the parameter ’prevent
researchers overlap’,
affiliated i.e., the
to academic andnodes can
research overlapfrom
institutions eachtheother.
UnitedAsStates
expected,
(12.6 %),there
Chinaare greater
(8.8%),
relationships and United
between Kingdom
points of the(8.7%).
sameIncolour
the right part of the same
highlighting figure the samebetween
the collaboration network isresearchers
represented
from the same countrydisabling
(e.g.,the
seeparameter
large nodes’prevent overlap’,
in the i.e., the
left part of nodes can overlap
the Figure each other. As
6 representing researchers
expected, there are greater relationships between points of the same colour highlighting the
from the United States), and those of neighbouring countries (e.g., see the large nodes in the right part
collaboration between researchers from the same country (e.g., see large nodes in the left part of the
of the same figure
Figure representing
6 representing researchers
researchers from thefrom
UnitedSerbia
States),close to those
and those from Bosnia
of neighbouring and(e.g.,
countries Herzegovina,
while otherseesimilar
the largecollaborations
nodes in the rightare partobserved
of the samebetween
figure representing
researchersresearchers
from from
ItalySerbia
and close to and also
Greece
those from
France and Germany). Bosnia and Herzegovina, while other similar collaborations are observed between
researchers from Italy and Greece and also France and Germany).

Figure 5. Network of collaborations of authors that have published papers containing ’renewable
Figure 5. Network of collaborations of authors that have published papers containing ’renewable
energy’ in the title or keywords.
energy’ in the title or keywords.
Sustainability 2018, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 18

Figure 6. Collaborations among researchers from different countries.

Figure 6. Collaborations among researchers from different countries.

The proposed method is also used to analyse the scientific collaborations between the academic
and research institutions of any country, and to determine which of them are more involved in
renewable energy. Figure 7 shows the relationship between Chinese institutions, and Figure 8
displays the network of researchers affiliated with Chinese institutions, those having the largest
number of researchers working on renewable energy are North China Electric Power University
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 12 of 17

The proposed method is also used to analyse the scientific collaborations between the academic
and research institutions of any country, and to determine which of them are more involved in
renewable energy. Figure 7 shows the relationship between Chinese institutions, and Figure 8 displays
the network of researchers affiliated with Chinese institutions, those having the largest number of
researchers working on renewable energy are North China Electric Power University (7.15%), Tsinghua
University (4.87%), and China Electric Power Research Institute (3.21%). In these figures, authors
with their eigenvector centrality (a measure of the influence of a node in a network) up to 0.05 are
Sustainability 2018, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 5 of 18
highlighted, such
Sustainability that
2018, 10, xthey can REVIEW
FOR PEER be considered the leaders of this research field in China. 5 of 18

Figure 7. Relationship between Chinese institutions.

Figure
Figure 7. Relationshipbetween
7. Relationship between Chinese
Chinese institutions.
institutions.

Figure 8. Relationship between authors from Chinese institutions.

Figure 8. Relationship between authors from Chinese institutions.
Figure 8. Relationship between authors from Chinese institutions.
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 13 of 17

Following the example of China, Figure 9 shows the relationship between United States
institutions and Figure 10 shows the collaboration network between researchers affiliated to institutions
from the United States, such that the institutions with more researchers investigating in renewable
energy are the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (3.36%), Arizona State University (1.31%),
Cornell University (1.31%), and Stanford University (1.31%).
Sustainability 2018, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 18
Sustainability 2018, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 18

Figure
Figure
Figure 9.
9.9. Relationship between
Relationship
Relationship between US
between US institutions.
USinstitutions.
institutions.

Figure
Figure
Figure 10.
10.10. Relationshipbetween
Relationship
Relationship between authors
between authors from
authors from US
fromUS
USinstitutions.
institutions.
institutions.

4. Conclusions
4. Conclusions
Renewable energy
Renewable energy sources
sources can
can be
be exploited
exploited inin aa clean
clean manner
manner toto obtain
obtain energy.
energy. Renewable
Renewable
energy is
energy is the
the future,
future, and
and to
to get
get to
to that
that future
future it
it is
is necessary
necessary toto invest
invest in
in advanced
advanced technologies.
technologies. But
But
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 14 of 17

4. Conclusions
Renewable energy sources can be exploited in a clean manner to obtain energy. Renewable energy
is the future, and to get to that future it is necessary to invest in advanced technologies. But these
technological advances come from the hand of the investigations performed by many researchers around
the world. This paper presents a methodology to identify the topics of investigation in renewable energy,
and to study how authors collaborate in this field. With this aim in mind, we provided a method to
understand two complex systems: the network of publications according to the citations and the network
of scientific collaborations according to the coauthorship of papers. For this purpose, a software bot
has been used; it has retrieved data from all the publications indexed by Scopus containing ’renewable
energy’ in the title or keywords. This information is later used to analyse scientific collaboration
networks of researchers working in this field. The novelty of this method comes from the fact that
community detection algorithms are applied to study these networks. Thus, growing energy needs
and the depletion of fossil fuel resources require research into sustainable energy options, including
both renewable energy sources and sustainable storage technologies. The results obtained show that it
is possible to determine some important areas of research activity, including hybrid systems, electric
vehicle and storage, policy regulations, distributed generation in smart grid, sustainability, usage
in data centres, economic issues, biomass, marine and ocean, and water desalination. Furthermore,
the analysis of the collaboration network in the field of renewable energy has allowed to identify
groups of researchers with different degrees of collaboration and to highlight the most important
researchers and institutions investigating in renewable energy issues in different countries. In this study,
the production of knowledge on the possibilities of improving renewable energies has been highlighted
by means of scientific research focused towards certain fields of research that are large consumers of
energy but are not yet fully integrated into the international scientific community through the relations
between their researchers. So, the methodology used enables us to examine the relationships between
communities, detecting those that are scientifically cooperating more deeply, such as distributed
generation in smart grid and hybrid systems. It also illustrates the strong relationship between
sustainability and research areas such as economics or legal regulations. It is worth highlighting
those scientific areas or communities detected that are slightly separated from the rest, and therefore
are not yet included in the core, emphasizing that these fields are open to research or cooperation of
participants in other related research fields, such as water desalination or renewable energy use in data
centres. An interesting conclusion is that the research of renewable energy as carbon neutral energy
opens new perspectives for environmental and economic sustainability.
It has also been obtained information on journals and congresses that have published a higher
number of papers on renewable energies. It is observed that the United States, China, the United
Kingdom, Germany, and Malaysia are the countries with the highest number of authors affiliated to
their universities and research centres who have published papers on renewable energies. It has also
been obtained information on the journals and congresses that have published the largest number of
papers on renewable energies.
As a limitation of the investigation, we must indicate that although there are community detection
algorithms capable of satisfactorily processing graphs with thousands of nodes and edges, the graph
visualization tools, as is the case of Gephi, show difficulties when processing and visualizing graphs
with tens of thousands of nodes, so, if necessary, the study would be limited to those papers published
in limited time intervals. Despite this limitation, this study contributes to the existing literature
by suggesting a new approach to evaluate a large number of publications in renewable energy.
In fact, to our knowledge, community detection algorithms have not yet been applied to obtain
detailed information in review papers in engineering branches, including the field of renewable energy.
The main contribution of this research lies in the fact that the methodology presented, supported by
the results obtained, has great potential to know quickly and intuitively which are the main lines of
research in renewable energy, the structure of collaborations of researchers interested in this subject,
or to highlight the researchers with greater visibility in a given country or worldwide. In addition,
Sustainability 2018, 10, 4510 15 of 17

the model presented can be extrapolated to the review of research work from any other scientific
discipline, so it is suggested that those members of the scientific community interested in publishing
review papers on any subject use the detection of communities in combination with graph visualization
tools, as this can help them significantly improve the scope and impact of their research.
Finally, it should be noted that the results obtained from this bibliographic review using
community detection algorithms and graph visualization tools can be very useful for agencies
that fund research in the field of renewable energy can take into consideration the relationships
between individual researchers, research groups, or organizations involved in projects. This opens
new perspectives for improvement, not only for the scientific communities detected and far from
the central nucleus of researchers, but also for those that do not appear given their current limited
relevance. Therefore, this study can also be very useful for researchers to establish new collaborations
with those groups and researchers of relevance in topics of interest.

Author Contributions: A.A. performed the literature review and article writing. R.B. and A.-J.P.-M. analysed the
data using community detection methods. F.M.-A. and F.G.M.: Research idea, article writing, and formatting; they
jointly contributed to the structure and aims of the manuscript, paper drafting, editing, and review. All authors
have read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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