Sign into your Physics World account to get access to all available digital issues of the monthly magazine. Your Physics World account is separate to any IOP accounts you may have
Create a Physics World account to get access to all available digital issues of the monthly magazine. Your Physics World account is separate to any IOP accounts you may have.
Note: The verification e-mail to complete your account registration should arrive immediately. However, in some cases it takes longer. Don’t forget to check your spam folder.
If you haven’t received the e-mail in 24 hours, please contact customerservices@ioppublishing.org.
Please enter the e-mail address you used to register to reset your password
Note: The verification e-mail to change your password should arrive immediately. However, in some cases it takes longer. Don’t forget to check your spam folder.
If you haven’t received the e-mail in 24 hours, please contact customerservices@ioppublishing.org
Thank you for registering with Physics World
If you’d like to change your details at any time, please visit My account
SolarMiner maps abandoned mining areas and reveals their huge potential for low‑cost solar energy
Abandoned mining areas are difficult to farm, often unsafe to build on, and expensive to restore. They also pose long‑term environmental risks due to land degradation, water contamination, and unstable ground. However, these hard‑to‑use landscapes are often large, open, and exposed to sunlight, making them promising locations for solar power generation.
In this work, the researchers developed a novel tool called SolarMiner to locate abandoned mining areas and calculate how much solar power they could produce. The tool combines satellite imagery with a computer vision model, a form of artificial intelligence, to identify and classify different types of mining sites. SolarMiner can detect mining areas, determine their type (e.g., open‑pit, subsidence zones, water‑filled pits), measure their surface area, and estimate how much solar capacity could be installed, along with the electricity output and cost.
They tested SolarMiner on a major coal‑mining region in China, Shanxi Province. Focusing only on abandoned mining areas, the model estimated that land‑based solar panels alone could generate over five times the province’s 2023 electricity consumption. Floating solar panels on water‑filled mine pits could generate even more, over six times Shanxi’s usage in the same year.
This research highlights the enormous potential of abandoned mining sites for clean‑energy generation. Using SolarMiner will help direct governments toward smarter planning of solar farms and transmission networks by identifying exactly which mining areas can be transformed into low‑cost, high‑impact renewable‑energy assets.
Assessing open-pit mine-site photovoltaic (PV) and floating PV potential using vision large model
Guohao Wang et al 2026 Prog. Energy 8 025002
A review on modelling methods, tools and service of integrated energy systems in China Nianyuan Wu et al. (2023)
The Progress In series is an evolving network of journals that curate, enhance, and amplify essential research, aiming to unite multidisciplinary global research communities. The journals share a joint mission to publish ground-breaking new research and authoritative invited reviews of the highest quality and significance.
