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This paper argues that historians and their disciplinary practices can enhance the analysis of energy transitions by non-historians. It explains how energy economists and policy analysts have only recently taken account of historical experience and how energy studies have become more inter- and multidisciplinary and more receptive to engagement with history and historians. The paper outlines the nature, variety and complexities of energy transitions, and then examines the growing policy focus on ‘low-carbon transitions’, which address the threat of climate change by seeking transitions away from greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, towards low-carbon renewable and /or nuclear energy. It explores three areas in which further historical analysis is especially valuable: the duration and speed of past energy system transitions and the insights to be gained from their analysis; path dependence, lock-in and the strategies, responses and destabilisation of incumbent energy actors and institutions; and theoretical approaches to ‘sustainability transitions’ and innovation. The paper concludes with an invitation to historians to collaborate further with non-historians, to enhance their understanding of energy transitions and to share the findings, methods, subtleties and limitations of historical analysis.