Study: Most US homes can save money and affordably weather blackouts with solar plus storage

Stanford University

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Most U.S. households could reduce their electricity costs and endure power outages by installing rooftop solar panels and battery packs, according to a new Stanford University study, though people may need to buy the equipment by Dec. 31.

About 60% of families could reduce their electricity costs by 15% on average by installing a solar-battery system. That’s after accounting for annualized capital and operating costs of the equipment. Some 63% of U.S households could also weather local or regional blackouts with such systems, able to meet about half their electricity needs on average. These households would either save money on electricity or at least see no rise in costs. However, the remaining households for which solar-battery systems are not economically viable tend to be relatively more burdened by high utility bills and power outages.

“With electricity rates now rising in most states, shaving utility bills can help people quite a bit, but the ability to ride out local or regional blackouts is becoming very important to many families,” said the study’s senior author, Ram Rajagopal, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and of electrical engineering at Stanford. “That’s because U.S. electricity infrastructure is old and getting replaced slowly, while the extreme weather events like hurricanes and heat waves that cause blackouts are becoming more frequent, intense, and longer lasting.”

The authors of the study, published August 1 in Nature Energy, performed a high-resolution nationwide assessment of more than 500,000 U.S. households’ access to solar PV and battery storage. The reseaerchers also published a policy brief on the subject in the same issue of Nature Energy.

Federal tax credits

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law on July 4 discontinues – at the end of this year – the residential clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Homeowners investing in residential renewable energy, including solar panels and batteries, can deduct 30% of the investment costs from their federal taxes. For a $30,000 solar array and $10,000 for residential battery packs, that is for now a $12,000 rebate.

“The bill does affect our analysis starting next year since our calculations include the 30% federal tax credit,” said the study’s lead author, Tao Sun, a postdoctoral scholar in Rajagopal’s lab. “However, homeowners can still access tax credits indirectly after 2025 through leasing arrangements or power purchase agreements. These indirect benefits will continue until 2027 for solar and 2033 for batteries.”

The study does not include the impact of the loss of the tax credit, but Sun calculated that the loss alone – ignoring indirect ways to get a tax benefit – would reduce the percentage of households for which solar-battery systems are economically viable from 60% to about 32%.

“By 2033, though, the falling price of battery packs would have the figure back at 60% and rising,” Sun added.

Declining utility payments

A second trend is also making battery packs more viable financially. Many U.S. states are lowering how much homeowners who buy solar panels will get paid for selling excess electricity to their local utilities, mostly during the afternoon. The higher payments had negated the economic benefits of buying a residential battery for most households, as a Stanford study showed in 2019.

That has changed. Now, people with battery packs can save their electricity for their own use when the sun is not shining, rather than selling power to their utilities at wholesale prices only to buy electricity at night at retail prices. More than one-third of homes today are in states that pay residential solar owners based on how much their electricity saves the local utility, which is almost always less than paying homeowners their full electricity rate. The number of states adopting this policy is rising.

Non-economic areas

Across the 48 continental states and Washington, D.C., the researchers quantified potential electricity cost savings and economically viable blackout resilience. They also quantified the burden electric bills placed on household incomes and how much homes in each state suffered from power outages.

Homes in states where outages are relatively more frequent would generally see lower backup improvements from solar-battery systems, they found. Also, many households burdened relatively highly by electricity bills would see only moderate savings on average from such systems. On the flipside, states where people benefit from relatively large cost reductions also tend to get higher levels of affordable backup power. These state patterns were true at county and even household levels, the study found.

“The solar-battery benefits often fail to align with the areas that need them most, like in certain high-outage-risk states where only one-fourth of households can get affordable backup power from solar-battery systems,” said Arun Majumdar, dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Electricity and co-author of the study. “As weather extremes like heat waves intensify the frequency and severity of power outages, ensuring affordable, secure, and sustainable backup power is increasingly critical for at-risk homes.”

The move to lower payments to homes selling electricity into the grid reduces the economic viability of solar-battery systems in states yet to make the move, like Iowa, Idaho, and Washington. Homes in disadvantaged communities and less-populated areas consistently have lower economic viability for solar-battery systems, regardless of the rates at which utilities pay them for their excess electricity. Both outcomes result from a mix of local retail rates, solar-battery technology costs, how much the sun shines, and outage risks.

“Economic incentives, financing mechanisms, and community-based deployment programs that target areas with high financial and reliability needs but low economic viability of solar-battery systems could help families that need such systems the most,” said Sun, who earned his PhD earlier this year in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, which is a joint department of Stanford’s School of Engineering and Doerr School of Sustainability.

The situation and its economic outcomes are dynamic. With technology costs declining, electricity rates rising, and U.S. federal tax incentives and rates paid to families selling excess solar power changing, further research and analysis will be crucial for informing policymakers, said Rajagopal.

“For example, future work could look at the viability of mobile energy storage that can move into neighborhoods when needed to supply backup power beyond the household level,” he added. “Such innovations could make our energy system more affordable, sustainable, and resilient, especially in neighborhoods currently with little access to clean energy.”

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Majumdar is also a faculty member in the departments of Energy Science & Engineering in the Doerr School, of Mechanical Science in the School of Engineering, and of Photon Science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, as well as a senior fellow at Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy and Woods Institute for the Environment. Rajagopal is also director of the Precourt Institute’s Bits & Watts Initiative and a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute.

 

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Journal

Nature Energy

DOI

10.1038/s41560-025-01821-w 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Solar and battery can reduce energy costs and provide affordable outage backup for US households

Article Publication Date

1-Aug-2025

 

Cyberstalking growing at faster rate than other forms of stalking

ONLINE MISOGYNIST MASCULINITY

University College London

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Cyberstalking is increasing at a faster rate than traditional stalking and is disproportionately affecting young people, women, and members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community, according to a new study led by researchers from UCL.

The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, is the first to use nationally representative data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) to examine the prevalence and perception of cyberstalking over an eight-year period (2012–2020).

It revealed that while cyberstalking remains less common than physical stalking, the proportion of respondents who reported being cyberstalked increased from 1.0% to 1.7% over the study period, outpacing both physical and cyber-enabled stalking.

Despite its growing prevalence and psychological impact, the study also highlighted the fact that many victims do not perceive cyberstalking as a crime, indicating a significant gap in public understanding and legal recognition.

Dr Leonie Tanczer, senior author of the study from UCL Computer Science, said: “Our findings show that cyberstalking is not only becoming more common, but it is also under-recognised as a serious offence. Many victims feel what happened to them was ‘wrong but not a crime’, which has profound implications for people seeking help and consequently for crime recording. It’s likely that cyberstalking is underreported for this reason.”

Stalking became a specific criminal offence in 2012 and is defined as repeated, unwanted contact. Cyberstalking as a crime is not well defined, but is described as ‘threatening behaviour or unwanted advances directed at another, using forms of online communications’ by the Crown Prosecution Service and is considered a prosecutable offence. Cyber-enabled stalking refers to physical crimes that use digital technologies to increase their reach, such as identifying a person’s location through their smartphone to follow them in the real world.

Cyberstalking is a growing problem that isn’t always recognised

The researchers analysed responses from 147,711 participants aged 16–59 across England and Wales to assess stalking prevalence, demographic risk factors, and perceptions of criminality.

The results indicated that in the last 12 months, physical stalking affected 1.3% of respondents, cyber-enabled stalking affected 2.2%, and cyberstalking affected 1.5%.

However, cyberstalking was the only category to have increased significantly over time, showing a 70% increase from 1% of respondents in 2012/13 to 1.7% in 2019/20.

In contrast, between 2012 and 2020 physical stalking increased by only 15% and cyber-enabled stalking decreased in prevalence, highlighting the shift from calls and text messages to more internet-focused stalking behaviours.

The analysis also revealed that public perception of cyberstalking did not necessarily correspond to its legal status. Overall, nearly half (48.7%) of people who had been stalked in any way in the last 12 months said their experience was ‘wrong but not a crime’, while only 26.7% identified it as a crime. However, those who faced solely physical stalking were more likely to view their experience as a crime compared to those who experienced solely cyberstalking.

Cyberstalking was also more likely to be committed by individuals not known to the victim, with just 32% of cyberstalking victims having a domestic relationship with the perpetrator, compared to 69% of cyber-enabled stalking victims.

Women, young people and lesbian, gay and bisexual community most affected

Young people aged 16-24 had the greatest chance of being cyberstalked (2.4%), compared to just 1.0% among 45-59-year-olds.

Women and lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals were also disproportionately affected, with women nearly twice as likely as men to experience all forms of stalking. Lesbian, gay and bisexual respondents were more than twice as likely to be cyberstalked compared to heterosexual participants (data on trans victims was not collected in the CSEW).

The study also found that younger victims were least likely to view their experience as criminal, despite being most affected. However, women (who face higher victimisation rates) were more likely than men to perceive stalking as a crime.

More needs to be done to recognise and protect against cyberstalking

The researchers are calling for improved public education, clearer legal definitions, and enhanced support services to address the growing threat of cyberstalking. They also recommend updates to the CSEW to better capture the nuances of stalking experiences, including more inclusive gender and sexual identity options and clearer distinctions between online and offline behaviours.

Dr Madeleine Janickyj, first author of the study from UCL Computer Science, said: “There is a clear disconnect between the lived experience of cyberstalking and how it is understood legally and socially. This not only affects whether victims seek help, but also how police and other services respond.

“It is possible that normalisation is a factor, particularly for young people who are just so used to cyberstalking that they don’t see it as a crime. This is perhaps reflected in wider attitudes that view what happens to people online as somehow not as bad as what happens in the real world.

“Beyond this, there are issues with how we're responding to and measuring cyberstalking that may be preventing victims from coming forward. In Freedom of Information requests, for example, the Met police admit that officers are not routinely recording online crimes and that cyber-enabled and cyberstalking cases will be much higher than reported in official statistics.

“We believe there is a growing need to educate people about and safeguard them from the rising threat posed by cyberstalking.”

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DOI

10.1093/bjc/azaf064 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Online and Offline Stalking Victimisation in the Crime Survey for England and Wales: Its Predictors and Victim/Survivors'

Article Publication Date

30-Jul-2025

Cyberstalking has surged by 70% in the UK since 2012, study finds

 

Turning biodiversity upside down: Conservation maps miss fungal hotspots by focusing on plants

New study finds that there is a major mismatch between aboveground plant diversity and Earth’s underground fungal biodiversity.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SPUN (Society for the Protection of Underground Networks)

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The mycorrhizal mushroom Austropaxillus betuloides emerges from a hyper-diverse but hidden underground fungal community in La Araucania, Chile

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Credit: SPUN/Tomás Munita

For decades, scientists and conservationists have been using aboveground plant biodiversity as a metric for conserving ecosystems. Now a new study finds that there is a major mismatch between aboveground plant diversity and Earth’s underground fungal biodiversity.

A new analysis published in Nature Communications on July 31 focused on the biodiversity mismatches between aboveground vegetation and mycorrhizal fungi – a group of underground fungi that form symbiotic relationships with the roots of 90% of land plants. These fungi help regulate the climate and global nutrient cycles, enabling plants to absorb water and nutrients and drawing 13 billion tons of carbon underground each year. Because many mycorrhizal fungi spend their entire lives hidden underground, it's been historically difficult for scientists and conservationists to map their distribution.

Using newly released global geospatial datasets, the researchers tested whether plant biodiversity can serve as a reliable proxy for mycorrhizal biodiversity. The results were striking. “At the global scale, there’s very little relationship between plant diversity and mycorrhizal fungal diversity,” says Laura van Galen, microbial ecologist with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and ETH Zurich.

The study found that diversity hotspots of the two largest groups of mycorrhizal fungi — arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal fungi — overlapped with plant diversity hotspots in only 8.8% and 1.5% of the cases, respectively. “This kind of massive mismatch tells us that prioritizing conservation based solely on aboveground diversity fails to capture diverse belowground regions,” says van Galen.

Aboveground and belowground hotspots overlapped only in regions like Central America and Southeast Asia and diverged significantly elsewhere. The scientists were surprised to learn that some ecosystems with very low levels of plant biodiversity were hotspots of mycorrhizal biodiversity. Boreal forests in Northern ecosystems emerged as containing extraordinarily high levels of underground biodiversity. These ecosystems have been overlooked in traditional plant-based maps. “There’s really an inversion happening here,” van Galen explains. “While tropical rainforests remain aboveground biodiversity havens, the soil tells a different story.”

What drives this divergence? Symbiotic interactions among species likely plays a role. “Fungi that associate with certain plant hosts may have super diverse communities when the right host plants are present, even if overall plant diversity is low,” says van Galen. Environmental tolerance is also likely important. “Fungi and plants respond to different environmental factors. Conditions that promote high plant diversity may only suit low fungal diversity. They could also be evolving at different rates. If fungi can evolve more quickly in response to climate fluctuations than plants, it’s possible that they may have outpaced plants in areas with unstable climates.”

The takeaway is clear: if we want to protect ecosystems and stabilize our climate, we must look beneath our feet. “Mycorrhizal fungi are often treated as plant accessories,” van Galen says. “It’s time to flip that perspective. Underground fungi deserve to be conservation priorities in their own right.”

 

Ectomycorrhizal mushrooms in a chunk of tundra vegetation in arctic Alaska.

Credit

SPUN/Kelcie Walther

The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) is a non-profit scientific research organization with a mission to map and preserve Earth’s fungal networks. In collaboration with researchers and local communities, SPUN is accelerating efforts to protect the underground ecosystems largely absent from conservation and climate agendas. To learn more about SPUN, visit: https://spun.earth/

Nature Communications, Van Galen et al., "Global divergence in plant and mycorrhizal fungal diversity hotspots " https://www.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60106-8

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DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-60106-8 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Global divergence in plant and mycorrhizal fungal diversity hotspots

Article Publication Date

31-Jul-2025

 

Potato evolved from tomato 9 million years ago

Cell Press

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Non-tuber-bearing and tuber-bearing species of the potato plant.

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Credit: Yuxin Jia and Pei Wang

An international research team has uncovered that natural interbreeding in the wild between tomato plants and potato-like species from South America about 9 million years ago gave rise to the modern-day potato. 

In a study publishing in the Cell Press journal Cell, researchers suggest this ancient evolutionary event triggered the formation of the tuber, the enlarged underground structure that stores nutrients found in plants like potatoes, yams, and taros. 

“Our findings show how a hybridization event between species can spark the evolution of new traits, allowing even more species to emerge,” says corresponding author Sanwen Huang of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China. “We’ve finally solved the mystery of where potatoes came from.” 

As one of the world’s most important crops, the potato’s origin had long puzzled scientists. In appearance, modern potato plants are almost identical to three potato-like species from Chile called Etuberosum. But these plants do not carry tubers. Based on phylogenetic analysis, potato plants are more closely related to tomatoes. 

To solve this contradiction, the research team analyzed 450 genomes from cultivated potatoes and 56 of the wild potato species. 

“Wild potatoes are very difficult to sample, so this dataset represents the most comprehensive collection of wild potato genomic data ever analyzed,” says the paper’s first author Zhiyang Zhang of the Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 

They found that every potato species contained a stable, balanced mix of genetic material from both Etuberosum and tomato plants, suggesting that potatoes originated from an ancient hybridization between the two.  

While Etuberosum and tomatoes are distinct species, they shared a common ancestor about 14 million years ago. Even after diverging for about 5 million years, they were able to interbreed and gave rise to the earliest potato plants with tubers around 9 million years ago. 

The team also traced the origins of the potato’s key tuber-forming genes, which are a combination of genetic material from each parent. They found the SP6A gene, which acts like a master switch that tells the plant when to start making tubers, came from the tomato side of the family. Another important gene called IT1, which helps control growth of the underground stems that form tubers, came from the Etuberosum side. Without either piece, the hybrid offspring would be incapable of producing tubers. 

This evolutionary innovation coincided with the rapid uplift of the Andes mountains, a period when new ecological environments were emerging. With a tuber to store nutrients underground, early potatoes were able to quickly adapt to the changing environment, surviving harsh weather in the mountains. 

Tubers also allow potato plants to reproduce without seeds or pollination. They grow new plants by simply sprouting from buds on the tuber. This trait allowed them to rapidly expand and fill diverse ecological niches from mild grasslands to high and cold alpine meadows in Central and South America. 

“Evolving a tuber gave potatoes a huge advantage in harsh environments, fueling an explosion of new species and contributing to the rich diversity of potatoes we see and rely on today,” Huang said.  

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Cell, Zhang et al. “Ancient hybridization underlies tuberization and radiation of the potato lineage” https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00736-6 

Cell (@CellCellPress), the flagship journal of Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that publishes findings of unusual significance in any area of experimental biology, including but not limited to cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and microbiology, cancer, human genetics, systems biology, signaling, and disease mechanisms and therapeutics. Visit: http://www.cell.com/cell. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com. 

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Journal

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2025.06.034 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Ancient hybridization underlies tuberization and radiation of the potato lineage

Article Publication Date

31-Jul-2025

 

Synthetic torpor has potential to redefine medicine

Washington University in St. Louis

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By Beth Miller

Nature is often the best model for science. For nearly a century, scientists have been trying to recreate the ability of some mammals and birds to survive extreme environmental conditions for brief or extended periods by going into torpor, when their body temperature and metabolic rate drop, allowing them to preserve energy and heat.

Taking inspiration from nature, Hong Chen, professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering and of neurosurgery at WashU Medicine, and an interdisciplinary team induced a reversible torpor-like state in mice by using focused ultrasound to stimulate the hypothalamus preoptic area in the brain, which helps to regulate body temperature and metabolism. In addition to the mouse, which naturally goes into torpor, Chen and her team induced torpor in a rat, which does not. Their findings, published in 2023 in Nature Metabolism, showed the first noninvasive and safe method to induce a torpor-like state by targeting the central nervous system.

Now, the team is in pursuit of translating induced, or synthetic, torpor into potential solutions for humans, such as when there is reduced blood flow to tissues or organs, to preserve organs for transplantation or to protect from radiation during space travel.

Conventional medical interventions focus on increasing energy supply, such as restoring blood flow to the brain after a stroke. Synthetic torpor seeks to do the opposite by reducing energy demand.

“The capability of synthetic torpor to regulate whole-body metabolism promises to transform medicine by offering novel strategies for medical interventions,” said Chen in a Perspectives paper published in Nature Metabolism July 31.

Synthetic torpor has been used successfully in preclinical models with medications and specialized targeting of the neural circuit, but there are challenges to adapting these methods for humans. Previous human trials with hydrogen sulfide were terminated early due to safety concerns.

“Our challenges include overcoming metabolic differences among animals and humans, choosing the correct dose of medication and creating ways to allow a reversible torpor-like state,” said Wenbo Wu, a biomedical engineering doctoral student in Chen’s lab and first author of the Perpectives paper, a collaboration between Chen’s team and Genshiro Sunagawa from the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research in Japan. “Collaboration among scientists, clinicians and ethicists will be critical to develop safe, effective and scalable solutions for synthetic torpor to become a practical solution in medicine.”

Chen’s team, including Yaoheng (Mack) Yang, who was a postdoctoral research associate in her lab and is now assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California, targeted the neural circuit with their induced torpor solution in mice. They created a wearable ultrasound transducer to stimulate the neurons in the hypothalamus preoptic area. When stimulated, the mice showed a drop in body temperature of about 3 degrees C for about one hour. In addition, the mice’s metabolism showed a change from using both carbohydrates and fat for energy to only fat, a key feature of torpor, and their heart rates fell by about 47%, all while at room temperature.

“Ultrasound is the only noninvasive energy modality capable of safely penetrating the skull and precisely targeting deep brain structures,” Chen said. “While ultrasound neuromodulation lacks cell-type specificity compared with genetic-based neuromodulation, it provides a noninvasive alternative for inducing synthetic torpor without the need for genetic modifications.”

Chen and her team indicate that synthetic torpor offers a promising therapeutic strategy with additional applications, including inhibiting tumor growth and potential development of new therapies for tau protein related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. However, much remains unknown about how brain regions, peripheral organs and cellular pathways coordinate metabolic suppression and arousal. Researchers also need to study the long-term risks and potential side effects and call for more preclinical studies and technological innovations that will facilitate a dual approach, which would include modulating neural circuits associated with hypometabolism and influencing peripheral metabolic pathways through systemic interventions, such as with drugs or peripheral neuromodulation.

“Synthetic torpor is no longer just a theoretical concept — it is an emerging field with the potential to redefine medicine,” Chen said. “Bridging fundamental neuroscience, bioengineering and translational medicine will be key to overcoming current challenges and advancing synthetic torpor toward real-world applications. Synthetic torpor could transition from a scientific curiosity to a human reality through interdisciplinary collaborations.”

 

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Wu W, Sunagawa GA, Chen H. Synthetic torpor: Advancing metabolic regulation for medical innovations. Nature Metabolism, July 31, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s42255-025-01345-3

 

Funding for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health (DP1DK143574 R01NS12846) and JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) 24H00604), and JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) 23H04941.

 

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Journal

Nature Metabolism

DOI

10.1038/s42255-025-01345-3