Author guidelines

Aims and scope

Clean Energy is an open access, peer-reviewed international journal, and serves as an important medium to present the latest research developments and knowledge on topics related to clean energy. The Journal will provide a high-profile platform for scientists, academic researchers, engineers and industrial professionals to publish papers of the highest quality and significance related to technologies for clean and low-carbon energy generation.
 
We are interested in:

1. Research articles (8,000 words maximum, up to 8 figures)
2. Review articles (10,000 words maximum, up to 8 figures)
3. Engineering Practice (6,000 words maximum, up to 6 figures)
4. Perspectives (2,000-4,000 words, up to 5 figures)
5. Insight (2,000-4,000 words, up to 5 figures)

Clean Energy also accepts Editorials, News and focus articles, and Research Centre Profiles, which are not peer-reviewed.

Research areas covered in the journal include:

• Carbon neutrality: Reducing GHG emissions from the industrial and utility sectors by carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS); reducing atmospheric CO2 via direct air capture (DAC).
• Renewable energy: Clean energy from non-fossil fuel sources, including: solar energy; wind energy; hydro and wave energy; hydrogen and fuel cells; biomass energy and biofuels.
• Innovative energy generation and use: Technologies that advance clean and low-carbon energy, including advanced clean coal technologies (CCT); hybrid energy generation systems, for example, combining thermal power generation and concentrated solar power, combined heat and power systems.
• Fundamental chemistry and materials science to support clean energy: Fundamental advances in chemical processes or materials for generating and storing clean energy.
• Energy storage and conversion: Systems or devices for storing and dispatching energy, including batteries, ultracapacitors, fuel cells, compressed air storage, thermal energy storage and generation, hydro energy storage, kinetic energy storage.

NOTE: Clean Energy publishes original research that advances the state-of-the-art using detailed experimental or modeling methods that are transparent and based on fundamental principles. Clean Energy no longer accepts modeling papers using design platforms such as HOMER, PVsyst, RETScreen, etc. as the primary method of analysis. Clean Energy no longer accepts case studies, which means application of a particular technology at a single location, because such works do not present probable interest to a general clean energy readership.

How we publish

Clean Energy is a peer-reviewed fully open access journal publishing 6 issues per year online. All papers published in the Journal are made freely available online under open access publishing agreements, with applicable charges. Please refer to the open access section below.

Clean Energy is an official publication of NICE. To publish the Journal, NICE partners with Oxford University Press (OUP), a not-for-profit publisher and a department of the University of Oxford. Learn more about how publishing with OUP reinvests in the scholarly community on the OUP For Authors page.

Once a paper is accepted and the publishing agreement is signed, the Journal will publish the Accepted Manuscript version of the paper (before copyediting and review of the final proof) within one week on the Advance articles page. The Accepted Manuscript will be removed from Advance articles when the Version of Record of the paper (after copyediting and proof review process) is published in the currently open issue. Substantial changes to the published Accepted Manuscript may require a correction notice.

Submitting

After preparing your manuscript according to the guidance in the Preparing your manuscript section, you can submit your work through the Journal’s online submission site. If you have not used our submission site before, you will need to create an account. Additional help and instructions are available on the submission site as you go through the process. Please contact us with any questions about submitting your manuscript

Peer review process

The Journal uses the ANSI/NISO Standard Terminology for Peer Review. If you would like further description of the peer review terms used here, please refer to the most recent standard definitions. If further clarification is needed, please contact the editorial office at [email protected].

The Journal operates double-anonymized peer review, meaning that the identity of the authors is hidden from reviewers, and the reviewers’ identities are hidden from the authors. The editors know the identity of both the reviewers and the authors.

Editors and reviewers must not handle manuscripts if they have a conflict of interest with an author or the content. Editors make every effort to avoid potential conflicts of interest in the assignment of other editors and peer reviewers. For more information, please see the section on Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. During the peer review phase, your manuscript is typically sent to 2 reviewers. 

You may suggest potential reviewers at submission. However, there is no guarantee the suggested reviewers will be selected by the Journal. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their field and able to provide an objective assessment of your manuscript without financial or interpersonal conflicts of interest with any authors. We encourage you to consider reviewers from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those from under-represented communities. 

At the time of submission, you may request that specific individuals not be used as reviewers of your manuscript. Please do so in your cover letter, along with a brief explanation as to why you want them excluded. However, there is no guarantee these individuals will be excluded by the Journal. 

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, no information about the review process or editorial decision process is published, unless one of the authors has a role on the journal. See the Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest section for more information in that case.

For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review. 

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision. To do so, please contact the editorial office at [email protected], providing as much specific detail as possible about why the original decision should be reconsidered. Every appeal will receive a response within a reasonable timeframe. Please do not resubmit your manuscript in the interim.

To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the Journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact [email protected]. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes.

Publication and research ethics

Authorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described. Any contributors whose participation does not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged but not listed as an author. The Journal will contact all listed authors at the point of submission to confirm their role. For a detailed definition of authorship, please see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) definitions of authors and contributors.

The Journal does not allow ghost authorship, where an unnamed author prepares the article with no credit, or guest/gift authorship, where an author who made little or no contribution is listed as an author. The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on ghost, guest, or gift authorship. For more information, please see the OUP Publication Ethics page.

Natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do not qualify as authors, and the Journal will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content or images, write code, process data, or for translation) should be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. Please see the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI for more details.

After manuscript submission, no authorship changes (including the authorship list, author order, and who is designated as the corresponding author) should be made unless there is a substantive reason to do so. The editor and all co-authors must agree on the change(s), and neither the Journal nor the publisher mediates authorship disputes. If individuals cannot agree on the authorship of a submitted manuscript, contact the editorial office at [email protected]. The dispute must be resolved among the individuals and their institution(s) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. If an authorship dispute or change arises after a paper is accepted, contact OUP’s Author Support team. COPE provides guidance for authors on resolving authorship disputes.

After submission, changing who is designated as the corresponding author will be permitted only where there is a substantive reason to do so. For the avoidance of doubt, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible. For more information on Read and Publish funding, see the Open access charges section.

ORCiD

Authors are encouraged to provide their ORCID iDs (Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) at submission and take advantage of the benefits of participating in ORCID. If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for free via the ORCID website. 

As ORCID identifiers are collected, they are included in papers and displayed online, both in the HTML and PDF versions of the publication, in compliance with recommended practice issued by ORCID.

ORCID functionality online allows users to link to the ORCID website to view an author’s profile and list of publications. ORCID iDs are displayed on web pages and are sent downstream to third parties in data feeds, where supported.

If you have registered with ORCID, you can associate your ORCID iD with your submission system account by going to your account details, entering your ORCID iD, and validating your details. Learn more about ORCID and how to link it to your account.

CRediT

The Journal uses the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT), which allows authors to describe the contributor roles in a standardized, transparent, and accurate way. Authors should choose from the contributor roles outlined on the CRediT website and supply this information upon submission. You may choose multiple contributor roles per author. Any other individuals who do not meet authorship criteria and made less substantive contributions should be listed in your manuscript as non-author contributors with their contributions clearly described. Following manuscript submission, any changes to contributor roles require the approval of the editor

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors

The Journal requires all authors to disclose any potential conflict of interest at the point of submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that conflicts of interest of all authors are declared to the Journal.

A conflict of interest exists when the position, activities, or relationships of an individual, whether direct or indirect, financial or non-financial, could influence or be seen to influence the opinions or activities of the individual. For more information, refer to OUP’s definition of conflict of interest.

The Journal follows the COPE guidance for any undisclosed conflict of interest that emerges during peer review, production, or after publication.

Reviewers

Individuals that have a conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript should recuse themselves and will not be assigned to oversee, handle, or peer review the manuscript.

If during peer review an editor, reviewer, or author becomes aware of a conflict of interest that was not previously known or disclosed they must inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately.

Editors

At initial submission, the corresponding author must declare if the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, or an Editorial Board Member of the Journal is an author of or contributor to the manuscript. Another editor without a conflict of interest will oversee the peer review and decision-making process. If accepted, a statement will be published in the paper describing how the manuscript was handled. The statement will read “[Author name] holds the position of [role] for Clean Energy and has not peer reviewed or made any editorial decisions for this paper."

Previously published material

You should only submit your manuscript(s) to the Journal if:

• It is original work by you and your co-author(s).
• It is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any other publication.
• It has not been published in any other publication.
• It contains nothing abusive, defamatory, derogatory, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

The submitting author must disclose in their cover letter and provide copies of all related or similar preprints, dissertations, manuscripts, published papers, and reports by the same authors (i.e., those containing substantially similar content or using the same, similar, or a subset of data) that have been previously published or posted electronically or are under consideration elsewhere at the time of manuscript submission. You must also provide a concise explanation of how the submitted manuscript differs from these related manuscripts and papers. All related previously published papers should be cited as references and described in the submitted manuscript.

The Journal does not discourage you from presenting your findings at conferences or scientific meetings but recommends that you refrain from distributing complete copies of your manuscripts, which might later be published elsewhere without your knowledge.

For previously published materials including tables and figures, please see the Reusing copyrighted materials section.

Preprints

As an author, you retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels and this does not prevent submission to the Journal. If accepted, you are required to update the status of any preprint, including adding your published paper’s DOI. For full details on allowed channels and updating your preprint, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Reusing copyrighted material

As an author, you must obtain permission for any material used within your manuscript for which you are not the rightsholder, including quotations, tables, figures, images, data, or software. In seeking permissions for published materials, first contact the publisher rather than the author. For unpublished materials, start by contacting the creator. Copies of each grant of permission should be provided to the editorial office of the Journal. The permissions agreement must include the following:

• Nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your paper in Clean Energy
• Rights for use in print and electronic format at a minimum, and preferably for use in any form or medium
• Lifetime rights to use the material
• Worldwide English-language rights

If you have chosen to publish under an open access license but have not obtained open access re-use permissions for third-party material contained within the manuscript, this must be stated clearly by supplying a credit line alongside the material with the following information:

• Title of content
• Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rightsholder]
• This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons license of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Our publisher, Oxford University Press, provides detailed Copyright and Permissions Guidelines, and a summary of the fundamental information.

Misconduct

Authors should observe high standards with respect to research integrity and publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data including inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices. Allegations of ethical misconduct, both directly and through social media, are treated seriously and will be investigated in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in one or more of the following outcomes, among others:

• If a submitted manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If a paper has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either a correction notice will be published and linked to the paper, or retraction of the paper will occur, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
• The relevant party’s institution(s) and/or other journals may be informed.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal may be screened with plagiarism-detection software. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose that part or all the of the manuscript has been previously published.

COPE defines plagiarism as:

“when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were their own and without proper acknowledgment.”

COPE defines redundant/overlapping publication as: 

“when a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification,
or
when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realise that most or all the findings have been published before.”

COPE defines citation manipulation as: 

“behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as: excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”

Data fabrication is defined as intentionally creating fake data or misrepresenting research results. An example includes making up data sets.

Data falsification is defined as manipulating research data with the purpose of intentionally giving a false representation. This can apply to images, research materials, equipment, or processes. Examples include cropping of gels/images to change context and omission of selected data.

If notified of a potential breach of research misconduct or publication ethics, the Journal editor and editorial office staff may inform OUP and/or the author’s institutional affiliation(s).

Ethical research

The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on ethical oversight. We take research integrity seriously, and all research published in the Journal must have been conducted in a fair and ethical manner. Wherever appropriate, the Journal requires that all research be done according to international and local guidelines.

Accessibility

Written, visual, and audio content in your submission should be accessible to all. Please see the C4DISC guidelines for making text, images, charts, tables, and audio and video accessible.

Availability of data and materials

Where ethically feasible, the Journal strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. Authors are required to include a data availability statement in their paper. When data and software underlying the research article are available in an online source, authors should include a full citation in their reference list. For details of the minimum information to be included in data and software citations see the OUP guidance on citing research data and software.

Whenever possible, data should be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files or deposited in a public repository. Visit OUP’s Research data page for information on general repositories for all data types, and resources for selecting repositories by subject area.

Data availability statement

The inclusion of a data availability statement is a requirement for papers published in the Journal. Data availability statements provide a standardized format for readers to understand the availability of original and third-party data underlying the research results described in the paper. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.

More information and example data availability statements.

Digital preservation

Content published in the Journal will automatically be deposited into digital preservation services, including CLOCKSS, the Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico. This ensures the long-term preservation of your work. Through LOCKSS, participating institutions can sustain access to content if the Journal were to otherwise be unavailable, even for a short period of time. Should the Journal ever cease to publish, or content would otherwise become permanently unavailable, long-term access to the archives of CLOCKSS and Portico would be triggered. Until such a trigger event were to occur, this content is not available to the public through CLOCKSS and Portico.

Self-archiving

Self-archiving refers to posting a copy of your work on a publicly accessible website or repository. Under certain circumstances, you may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. For information about the Journal's policy, and to learn which version(s) of your paper are acceptable for self-archiving, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Publishing agreement and charges

Authors, please read each section on the publishing agreement and charges carefully.

If you have any questions relating to your publishing agreement or charges please contact OUP Support.

Publishing agreement

After your manuscript is accepted, you will be asked to sign a license to publish through our licensing and payment portal, SciPris. The Journal is fully open access, meaning all papers in the Journal are published under an open access license. Papers can be published under the following:

Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY)

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY NC)

Please see the OUP guidance on Licenses, copyright, and re-use rights for more information regarding these publishing agreement options.

Open Government Licence

The Open Government Licence is an open licencing model for content produced by employees of UK Crown bodies allowing users to copy, publish, distribute adapt and transmit the Information for commercial and non-commercial purposes. For additional information visit the gov.uk information on the Open Government Licence.

Complying with funder mandates

Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution before selecting your license.

Further information on funder mandates and direct links to a range of funder policies.

Charges

Open access charges

Clean Energy is a fully open access journal, and all articles are published in the journal under an open access licence immediately upon publication. Clean Energy does not currently charge for open access.

Color charges

The Journal does not charge for color.

Page charges

The Journal does not have page charges.

Changes to published papers

The Journal will only make changes to published papers if the publication record is seriously affected by the academic accuracy of the published information. Changes to a published paper will be accompanied by a formal correction notice linking to and from the original paper.

As needed, we follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.

For more information and details of how to request changes, including for authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns, please see OUP’s policy on changes to published papers.

Promoting your work

As the author, you are the best advocate for your work, and we encourage you to be involved in promoting your publication. Sharing your ideas and news about your publication with your colleagues and friends could take as little as 15 minutes and will make a real difference in raising the profile of your research.

You can promote your work by:

• Sharing your paper with colleagues and friends. If your paper is published open access, it will always be freely available to all readers, and you can share it without any limitations. Otherwise, use the toll-free link that is emailed to you after publication. It provides permanent, free access to your paper, even if your paper is updated.
• Signing up for an ORCID iD author identifier to distinguish yourself from any other researchers with the same name, create an online profile showcasing all your publications, and increase the visibility of your work.
• Using social media to promote your work. To learn more about self-promotion on social media, see our social media guide for authors.

Find out how Oxford University Press promotes your content. 

Preparing your manuscript

General guidelines on preparing your manuscript for publication can be found on OUP’s Preparing and submitting your manuscript page. Specific instructions for Clean Energy can be found below.

Original manuscripts will only be accepted as Word (.doc or .docx) files. If the original manuscript has been created using LaTeX, a PDF file can be submitted; the author must explain this in the cover letter. Otherwise, PDF file submissions will be rejected. Upon revision, please provide the main manuscript as a Word doc or docx. A manuscript template is available in Word.

Author contributions

Clean Energy encourages authors to include an Author Contribution statement in the title page file submitted with the manuscript. For example:
Author Contribution Statement

• Zhang San: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software; Priya Singh: Data curation, Writing- Original draft preparation; Wang Wu: Visualization, Investigation; Jan Jansen: Supervision; Ajay Kumar: Software, Validation; Sun Qi: Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

Text abstracts

Text abstracts must be written in English.

We suggest a maximum length of 300 words for the Abstract and to avoid reference citations and abbreviations.

Graphical abstracts

A graphical abstract is a single figure prepared by the authors that summarizes the key point(s) of an article and serves as a visual introduction to encourage interest in the content. When preparing your graphical abstract, keep in mind that they are ideally suited for promoting your article on social media, so text should be large enough to be read in that context and the image should be oriented in landscape format.

Please also consider the accessibility of your graphical abstract to all readers. See OUP's Guidelines for making figures accessible.

Graphical abstracts are peer reviewed and published as part of the article online and in the PDF. It also appears in the table of contents and some other journal pages including in search results.

Your graphical abstract should be submitted as a separate file, selecting the appropriate file type designation in the online submission system. The file should be named “graphical_abstract”. Please see OUP's guidance on appropriate file format and resolution for graphics.

Teaser text

Teaser text is a non-technical summary stating the novelty of the article, is displayed on the Table of Contents page (TOC) and search results, under the article title. The language in the teaser text used should be understood by a non-specialist. Please ensure you use the third person, not first person (i.e. do not use 'I' or 'we'). Teaser text is an online only element and will not be included in the article content.

Tables and figures

Tables and figures should be accompanied by a caption. Figures should be submitted as separate, high-resolution (300 DPI minimum) files in either .jpg or .tif format. Figures should be sized for either a single column of print (85 mm width) or a double column of print (177 mm width). The images should be clear without blurry edges or text that is difficult to read. Tables should be provided in an editable format and can be included in the main document, or provided as a separate file. They should not be in image format.

Videos

Videos can be published in the online article, with a still image of the video appearing in the PDF version. Please submit videos in MP4 format. Any supplementary videos that you do not want to be included in the article itself can be uploaded as supplementary data. All videos should have an accompanying legend.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Study funding

You must fully declare all funding information relevant to the study, including specific grant numbers, under a separate subheading following the acknowledgements.

Supplementary data

Submit all material to be considered as Supplementary Data online at the same time as the main manuscript. Ensure that the supplementary material is referred to in the main manuscript at an appropriate point in the text. Supplementary material will be available online and will not be copyedited, so ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented, and that the style conforms with the rest of the paper. Also ensure that the presentation will work on any Internet browser. It is not recommended for the files to be more than 2 MB each, although exceptions can be made at the editorial office's discretion. Please ensure that any figures included in the supplementary material are high resolution, as these will be published online as they are received.

Abbreviations and nomenclature

Do not include abbreviations lists. Please ensure that each abbreviation used in the manuscript text is expanded upon first mention. The only instance in which an abbreviations list can be permitted is in the case of symbols or abbreviations used in equations. If your paper contains equations and/or uses symbols, a Nomenclature section can be inserted before the Reference section.

References

References should be cited within your paper using square brackets and Arabic numerals, as in this example [1]. Clean Energy uses the Oxford University Press SciMed (numeric) reference style. List your references numerically in the reference list as they appear in your manuscript (not alphabetically). Include a minimum of three authors followed by et al. in the reference list. All journal articles, preprints and book chapters must contain a DOI. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references..

Pre-submission language editing

You may wish to use a language-editing service before submitting to ensure that editors and reviewers understand your manuscript. Our publisher, Oxford University Press, partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Through the OUP-Enago partner page, prospective authors are entitled to a discount for language editing, abstract and layperson summary writing, rejected manuscript editing, and creation of graphical abstracts, illustrations, and videos.

Enago is an independent service provider, which will handle all aspects of this service, including payment. As an author you are under no obligation to take up this offer. Language editing and other services from Enago are optional and do not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will undergo the regular review process of the Journal. For more details and a list of additional resources, please see OUP’s page on language services.

Proofs

Authors will receive a link to the PDF proof of their manuscript on our online system by email, and it is essential that a current email address is supplied with all manuscripts. Proofing instructions will accompany the PDF file but the proof should be checked immediately upon receipt and uploaded in accordance with covering instructions. Only essential corrections should be made at the proof stage.

Contact us

For questions regarding submission and review, including appeals, you can reach the editorial office by email at [email protected].

After your paper has been sent to production, you can contact [email protected] for questions regarding publishing agreements and charges, the production process, or publication. Please see Changes to published papers if you need to request a substantive change to your published paper.