Exploring Signals for a Nuclear Future Using Social Big Data

Academic Topics Related to Household Energy Consumption Using the Future Sign Detection Technique

With the emergence of new technologies and policies to transition to clean energy, the household energy consumption sector is also changing. In response to policy, environmental, and technical changes, researchers need to find out what significant issues are related to household energy consumption, and comprehensively analyze which issues are likely to attract attention in the future to contribute to research in the household sector. Based on the abstracts of academic papers published between 2011 and 2020, this study uses probabilistic topic modeling to increase understanding of academic issues in the household energy consumption sector and statistically reviews changes in issues over time. As a result of the analysis, topics related to digitalization and renewable energy, such as microgrid system, smart home, residential solar power generation systems, and non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM), belonging to Strong signals, are being actively studied. Weak Signals, which can attract attention in the future, are included in discussions on coal energy consumption, air pollutant emissions, energy poverty, and energy performance evaluation. The analysis results show that carbon neutrality, such as decarbonization and fossil energy consumption reduction, is expanding to research in the household energy consumption sector.

A Study on the Characteristics of Academic Topics Related to Renewable Energy Using the Structural Topic Modeling and the Weak Signal Concept

It is important to examine in detail how the distribution of academic research topics related to renewable energy is structured and which topics are likely to receive new attention in the future in order for scientists to contribute to the development of renewable energy. This study uses an advanced probabilistic topic modeling to statistically examine the temporal changes of renewable energy topics by using academic abstracts from 2010–2019 and explores the properties of the topics from the perspective of future signs such as weak signals. As a result, in strong signals, methods for optimally integrating renewable energy into the power grid are paid great attention. In weak signals, interest in large-capacity energy storage systems such as hydrogen, supercapacitors, and compressed air energy storage showed a high rate of increase. In not-strong-but-well-known signals, comprehensive topics have been included, such as renewable energy potential, barriers, and policies. The approach of this study is applicable not only to renewable energy but also to other subjects.