How can the history and philosophy of science be helpful in teaching the concept of energy? We are currently investigating this topic in a research project that consists of two major themes: the first concentrates on the history and philosophy of the concept of energy, and the second on how to teach energy in classrooms. In this article, we provide an overview of this project and present our reasoning for connecting these two themes. The article then goes on to focus on the teaching of energy, providing a brief summary of the state of play in the field today and discussing current attempts to integrate the history and philosophy of science into teaching programmes. In conclusion, we argue for a larger role to be given to the history and philosophy of science in the teaching of energy and outline the two research areas we intend to develop.