Journals for Renewable Energy and Energy Systems Research: SCI, SSCI, ESCI, Scopus and EI Compendex Options, With and Without Article Charges

Energy is the most expensive subject in this series to publish in. The stated open access charges on this page run past 3,700 US dollars at the top, and several titles that look like obvious targets sit above 3,000. Before any journal name is worth reading, you need to know which of three routes you are on, because the route decides the bill.

Put plainly: in renewable energy the free routes are unusually strong, and the expensive routes are unusually expensive. Paying is a choice here, not a requirement.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Two quartiles exist and they measure different things. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago, inside a Scopus subject category, and the JCR quartile comes from Clarivate, inside a Web of Science category, using the impact factor. Energy categories are huge, so the two often disagree.

The index tier matters more. An ESCI journal shows an impact factor and a quartile that look exactly like an SCIE one on screen, and this field has ESCI titles with impact factors above 20, so an ESCI listing will still not satisfy a rule asking for SCIE. Where the tier is not recorded, the tables say so rather than guess. Settling this before the cover letter is the first step in Journal Submission Preparation.

Web of Science options: SCIE, SSCI and ESCI

The senior journals of the field, and the ones most authors name first. Most are subscription titles, which means no APC and a long queue. The AI Journal Finder matches an abstract against these in seconds.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

EI Compendex indexed journals

The power systems and storage side, where the contribution is a method, a device or a control scheme.

Scopus-indexed options

These carry a Scopus quartile, several with no Web of Science tier recorded, and the lower rows are where a first energy paper realistically lands. Planning two or three papers rather than one submission is the Mentorship Program.

Diamond open access: energy journals that charge nothing

The strongest free tier anywhere in this series. Four of these are SCIE listed, one with an impact factor above 14, and none charges the author a penny.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Gold open access journals for renewable energy research

Published charges, and the highest in this series. Compare each row against the free table above before you commit a budget.

Indexed conference routes in energy research

Energy has a deep, genuinely indexed conference circuit, which is rare. Indexing is decided one volume at a time, so check the coming edition rather than the reputation of the series.

How energy papers are written, and what that means for your draft

Read ten papers from any journal in the first table and a house style shows through. Matching it is not cosmetic, because editors in this field read the first page for signals that the work is quantitative and comparable.

1. The abstract carries numbers. Efficiency, cost per kilowatt hour, capacity factor, emissions avoided, with the baseline they improve on. An abstract of general claims reads as a weak paper before anyone opens it.
2. Units and symbols are declared. A nomenclature table is standard in the engineering titles, and inconsistent units are the commonest formatting rejection we see here.
3. The system boundary is drawn early. What is inside the model, what is outside, and over what period. Levelised cost figures with no stated discount rate, lifetime or boundary are treated as unusable.
4. Comparison is expected, not optional. Against a published benchmark, a conventional technology or a prior model, with the comparison conditions stated.
5. Policy papers still quantify. Even in Energy Policy and Energy Research and Social Science, the argument is expected to rest on measured or modelled quantities rather than on narrative alone.
6. Figures do the work. Energy reviewers read figures before text, so a poor chart costs more here than clumsy prose does.

Fixing all of that before submission is Manuscript Preparation Support, and the language and formatting pass is Manuscript Editing.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

What does a Diamond open access journal live on if the author pays nothing?

An institution pays instead. In renewable energy specifically, the free titles on this page are funded by Chinese research institutes and university presses, a US science association and a national grid research body, all of which treat the journal as research infrastructure rather than a business.

That funding model is why several of them carry SCIE listings and impact factors above 14. Free to publish says nothing about quality here, and in this field it often says the opposite.

Is a low publication fee in renewable energy research a warning sign?

Not by itself. Materials Reports: Energy charges 1,000 US dollars with an impact factor of 13.8, while a title on this page with no Web of Science tier recorded charges 3,200, so price tracks the publisher's costs and ambitions rather than quality.

The warning signs are different: a fee that appears only after acceptance, an indexing claim the index does not confirm, an editorial board you cannot verify, and promised review times of days rather than weeks.

Can I get an article charge waiver as an author from a developing country?

Often, and it is usually applied automatically rather than on request. Most large publishers run their schemes off the Research4Life country groups, where Group A countries receive a full waiver on fully open access journals and Group B countries a discount, commonly half.

The check happens at submission against the corresponding author's institution, so make sure the corresponding author is the one whose affiliation qualifies. In this field there is a second route that costs nothing at all: the seven Diamond titles above.

Which renewable energy publishers waive fees for Indian or African authors?

The answer differs sharply between the two. Many African countries sit in Research4Life Group A or B, so authors there commonly receive a full waiver or a half discount automatically from publishers such as Wiley and Sage. India is not on the Research4Life lists, so publishers using those lists alone offer nothing, while publishers that use the World Bank lower-middle-income classification apply a discount, and Elsevier scales the charge by national income instead.

For an Indian author the practical route is to check the specific journal's fee page, ask the library about an institutional agreement, and otherwise use the free titles, which in this subject include SCIE Q1 journals.

How do I know if a renewable energy conference is really EI Compendex indexed?

Check the series in Engineering Village, which is the only place EI Compendex coverage can be confirmed, and check the specific proceedings volume rather than the conference name. No conference website can prove its own indexing, because the index decides after the volume is published.

Energy attracts a high volume of invitation emails promising indexed proceedings. Treat the claim as marketing until the series appears in the index itself.

Which renewable energy conferences index in Scopus proceedings?

The series in the conference table above are the matches in this subject, with Energy Proceedings covered to 2026, the IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting to 2025, and the Asia-Pacific Power and Energy Engineering Conference to 2025. Coverage years are listed against each one.

The coverage year matters more than the series name. A series covered to 2025 is not a promise about the 2027 edition you are being invited to.

Can I extend my conference paper into a journal article in renewable energy research?

Yes, and it is normal practice, provided the journal version adds substantial new material and you cite the conference paper openly in both the manuscript and the cover letter. Most publishers expect roughly a third to a half of the journal article to be new.

In this field new usually means more cases, a longer measurement period, a sensitivity analysis or a validation the conference paper lacked. Reformatting the same simulation and lengthening the literature review is duplicate publication.

How much does it cost to publish a renewable energy paper in an indexed journal?

Anywhere from nothing to 3,780 US dollars, which is the widest spread in this series. Ten titles here charge nothing, including SCIE Q1 journals, and most senior SCIE titles are subscription, which also charges no APC.

Where a fee applies, the gold open access range on this page runs from 1,000 to 3,780 dollars, and the price bears no relation to the impact factor: the same impact factor of 13.8 appears at 1,000 dollars and at 3,780.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. In energy research a further check is common: whether units, system boundaries and cost assumptions are stated clearly enough to be reproduced. Run your own overlap check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and use the AI Journal Finder to confirm the journal's scope matches your abstract before you submit.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it on formatting. Subject-matched PhD editors, milestone payments, and the author stays the author throughout. The revision round is Review & Response Support, cross-country work is Collaboration Matching, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about publication fees

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。