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Discussion - June 2011
How can we speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future?
32 Comments from our contributors
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Consultant
Arizona Science Foundation
said: On 01/06/2011
SETTING SOLAR ENERGY DATA FREE
Thousands of solar energy systems are now installed on Arizona rooftops and hundreds of megawatts are installed as grid projects thanks to state policy aided by federal and state financial incentives. Even with this progress, Arizona’s abundant sunshine, and broad consumer acceptance, solar energy remains stuck in an early adopter market. It is stuck because electric utilities, as an industry, have not created a value proposition for this disruptive technology offsetting its higher costs. In fact it is not unusual for utilities to assign additional cost penalties just because its value to normal business operations remains unknown. The solution starts with creating opportunities for innovators and entrepreneurs anxious to develop and offer products and services for the energy market. They need actionable knowledge, that new bedrock of our economy that drives a continuous stream of products from Google Docs to mobile phone apps, to advanced energy efficiency devices.
The novelty of a solar energy data based innovation system lies in knowing more about today’s technology performance as it moves through the supply chain and less about creating a new generation of solar technologies. Admittedly, solar energy involves a complex data string and its source, content and context are often hidden. Even so, it is possible to create a basic kilowatt-hours per kilowatt data bank from the every expanding number of working systems. When integrated with separate vertical data banks for technology, GIS, time based weather recordings and local market information including regulatory constraints, a framework for large grid products, services, and competencies results. Distributed generation data banks holding customer information including load shapes, peak load pricing structures when integrated with the kilowatt data bank could produce products that respond to price signals, as well as products to serve the new smart grid and plug in electric vehicles markets.
While this vision for a data based innovation system is appealing, it has yet to be implemented effectively. The 100 year old U. S. Weather Service that has become everything we know about the weather serves as a model going forward. A National Renewable Energy Data Service formed by a private/public partnership would invest in the necessary data integration models and forecasting tools as well as provide extended access together with supporting data mining, visualization, and decision assistance. Its university based regional centers–Arizona for solar energy–strengthen this effort with user-defined regional and local energy infrastructure products and services.
Wider market acceptance for solar energy is within reach. Collecting operating data, evaluating and refining that data, adding value and then setting it free is key to reaching this goal.
Consultant
Klunder Consulting
said: On 01/06/2011
Sometimes it is useful to state the obvious: It is national policies that speed up the realization of a sustainable energy future. Such policies can move forward the full spectrum of commercial activity – continued innovation, production growth, learning curve benefits, more competitive pricing, and user acceptance.
There are multiple examples of national policies that delivered tangible results:
- In 1993, Denmark established increasing targets for wind energy capacity. Today, Denmark produces nearly one quarter of its electricity from wind and innovative Danish firms supply nearly 50% of wind turbines worldwide.
- Germany introduced a feed-in tariff for solar energy in 2000 and soon thereafter became the world leader in installed capacity – despite solar resources roughly equivalent to the state of Alaska. Germany added more solar capacity in 2010 than any other nation and German photovoltaic firms are active worldwide.
- Spain’s “Royal Decree” provided a premium for solar electric output and, given the country’s relatively good “direct normal” insolation, Spanish firms focused on concentrating solar power. As a result, Spain currently leads the world in installed CSP capacity. The U.S. will soon overtake Spain – but Spanish firms will build much of the new U.S. CSP capacity.
- China has adopted national policies to increase domestic photovoltaic power and few doubt that it will soon become the world leader in installed PV energy capacity. Chinese firms (including Taiwan) already produce over 50% of the world’s PV cells and modules and the anticipated domestic growth will likely increase their market share.
These examples suggest that favorable national policies can bring national benefits. However, one size does not fit all; policies must be tailored to available sustainable energy resources and to the national political landscape. Furthermore, desired policies do not happen in a vacuum. Government decision makers must be identified, educated, persuaded and, eventually, convinced. Public audiences also need to be addressed via the same string of actions. Fortunately, there are numerous groups today involved in these activities. Regretfully, all need to be more effective.
Years ago, the renewable energy world had only projections and promises to offer audiences. Today there is far more solid evidence to bring to the table. In addition to the policy examples cited above, there are now commercial inroads of sustainable technologies that merit citation. The price of wind energy is less than 6 cents/kWh, a value competitive with fossil sources in many areas. This low priced energy is being delivered daily in U.S., European, Asian, and other markets. In addition, photovoltaic technology has an envious 10 or 12 year capital cost reduction curve – and an even more astounding three-year delivered energy price reduction, as recent utility scale volume markets began to be realized. Furthermore, emerging CSP plants with thermal storage are providing utilities with fossil-like power sources – dispatchable electricity from solar energy. Biomass and geothermal have similar we-can-do-it examples.
Finally, the ammunition is in our pouch. We need to use it better.
Consultant and Founder
Energetic Consulting
said: On 01/06/2011
Even before the deathly nuclear disaster in Fukushima, the main question we face today has been how the expansion of renewable energy sources (RES) and energy efficiency measures can be speeded up. An important factor for the implementation of RES projects is a safe legal and administrative environment. An investor fears nothing more than stranded investments. Germany and 50 other countries provide this safe investment environment because they apply the principle of declining feed-in tariffs. Germany has been a front-runner applying the system of feed-in tariffs; at first with the Electricity Feed-In Law of 1991 (“Stromeinspeisungsgesetz”) followed by the Renewable Energy Sources Act (“Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz” – EEG) of 2000. These regulations let to a significant increase in the use of renewable energy sources in Germany – in the year 2010 17 per cent of Germany’s electricity consumption came from RES – but also to a strong and successful renewable energy industry with more than 300,000 jobs in 2009.
But the German and European renewable energy industry is facing another challenge these days: Asian competitors are rushing their cheaper products into the European market. This is why some analysts already argue, that the European renewable energy industry will fall back and China and India will be the big winners in the future. Yes, China is now in the top 3 when it comes to quantity of Photovoltaics (PV) and wind energy. But their RES-companies are no technology leaders. Or have you heard of a Chinese 5 or 6-MW-Offshore-wind turbine? Or have you heard of a 25-year-warranty on Chinese PV-modules, which guarantees a maximum output reduction of no more than 0.7% annually over a 25-year period? The German PV-company SolarWorld is doing exactly that. Finally, Chinese PV-modules still have a slightly lower efficiency than most European products. Over a life time of 25 years this means less electricity production and thus less income. While the Chinese product might be cheaper to buy, over the lifetime of the module, they will generate less income than a more expensive European panel with a higher degree of efficiency. Thus, quantity is not all, quality and efficiency are decisive!
And in order for Europe to continue to be an innovation leader, and to even speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future, public-funded energy research is very decisive. U.S. President Obama in his State of the Union Address in January 2011 called on his country to see leadership in renewable energy technologies as the present generation’s “Sputnik moment” and announced an increase in assistance for energy research.
And what are Germany and the European Union doing? The present German government changed the relative importance of the items in its energy research budget shortly after entering office in 2009. For example, it raised the funds for nuclear energy research from EUR 186 million to EUR 233.2 million and those for nuclear fusion research from EUR 119.4 million to EUR 143 million in 2010. In addition, Germany and Europe are participating in the construction of the ITER experimental fusion reactor in France, the cost of which tripled to EUR 15 billion even before construction began.
The question, then, is whether Germany and Europe can afford to spend billions more in government research funds on the aberration of nuclear fusion even though, despite decades of research, it has yet to feed-in a single kilowatt hour of electricity into the public grid and is not expected to be available for at least another 30 to 40 years. If Europe intends to remain a credible force in the fields of climate protection and renewable energy sources and to continue to be the role model for developing and newly industrialising countries when it comes to building a low-carbon society than European energy policy must be even more ambitious in pursuing the massive expansion in the use of renewable energy sources. The energy research budgets must be shifted away from nuclear energy and nuclear fusion towards energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. And the European member states must formulate action plans to phase out their nuclear power plants and switch towards energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
Head of the “III–V- epitaxy and solar cell” group
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE)
said: On 01/06/2011
I would like to answer this question from my personal point of view. As a researcher in photovoltaics I am spending a large part of my time with applying and managing financial funding and for arranging to have the necessary infrastructure to support new developments. Also the funding is usually not free but bound to specific development tasks. This takes away the flexibility to quickly react and look into new ideas and follow them for some time until they appear to be good or not. If innovation has to be fast, flexibility for the spending of budgets is extremely important. Another difficulty is to attract the very best people as we can not always offer them sufficiently good conditions. These things could certainly be improved.
Further, we need a clear and secure market opportunity for companies. It may not be obvious why this is so critical but I want to explain it with an example. If researchers believe to have an excellent idea, they need new equipment and the help of existing companies with expertise. These companies are often not in the energy business but could be working in any other field. For getting support of these companies and for convincing them to put the best effort and resources into the development, it is important that there is an excellent market opportunity. This is the kind of atmosphere which drives innovation. Put together excellent scientists from different areas, give them some freedom and sufficient funding and surround them by companies which are keen to develop energy technologies because they believe in their business potential. And finally keep the pressure and speed for innovation high by supporting competition.
Economist
Verdurous Solutions Private Limited
said: On 02/06/2011
A man was seen looking for something under a street lamp. On further enquiry it was made known that the ring from his finger had fallen off. He went on to add that it had probably fallen at the far end of the street but it was dark there; he was looking for it where he could see!
In the same vein, headline-grabbing renewable energy related news more often mentions installed capacities in MW and GW and solar cell efficiencies and the like, as opposed to reporting actual power production from the ground. In other words, the industry ends up measuring and reporting statistic that is more readily observable and probably more awe-inspiring than routine operating values. In the excitement surrounding new materials, new coatings, substrates and percentage gains in efficiency, or in getting carried away by the subsidy / feed-in-tariff frenzy, one tends to forget that solar PV or RE technology in general are an intermediate good, rather than a final consumption good. Except in certain cases of building integrated photovoltaics, people do not generally install silicon panels because they like the blue shading of the poly-silicon cell, or other such aesthetic attributes!
There have been several instances of installed capacity being underutilized either owing to sub-optimal location, or to inadequate grid-capacity to help evacuate the power so generated, or both. Likewise in given situations, the incentive schemes have proved to be too generous to be sustained, or too meagre to attract industry attention. In other cases as in parts of Germany, the schemes have been too successful for their own good thus adding excess, potentially underutilized capacity. In all, despite the hysteria and the excitement, the fact remains that the solar PV industry stutters and limps along from incentive to incentive.
It is beyond doubt that advancement in PV technology has been tremendous and that production has witnessed a grand scale-up owing to the subsidy programs and feed-in-tariff schemes instituted in over sixty countries. Yet the sustainability of the industry is far from settled: the suspension of incentive schemes even in a small number of large markets (think Spain, Czech Republic et al.) could cause significant heart burn. And there are the stubbornly high prices of the “balance of systems”, the inverters and storage devices. This coupled with the shortage of adequately skilled technicians and the consequent rise in cost of man-power make matters worse. Subsidized electricity tariffs and the uncertainties associated with the sustenance of the incentive schemes leave less of an incentive for home-owners and small businesses to install PV arrays on their roof-tops.
Large centralized PV power plants feeding into the utility grid defeat the inherent advantages of the technology: modularity and the ability to generate at or close to the point of consumption. This is crucial in countries like India where the transmission and distribution losses (both technical and “financial”) could be of the order of 30%. Acquiring large tracts of land for “solar farms” is likely to be contested and preserving, protecting and operating the plant subsequent to installation a major challenge. Optimal utilization of solar PV arrays especially in geographies like India would be by way of small plants tied to local mini-grids within small clusters or even individual institutions. This would help bridge the deficit in electric power supply, ensure physical security of the plant, and bring about disciplined maintenance and upkeep. Viewing the plant as an end in itself and setting targets for plant installation as opposed to viewing such plants as a part of a solution, is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse. Genuine innovation is required in aligning the incentive structures of the equipment vendors and the power consumers, in designing financing mechanisms that would generate cash-flows overlapping with the life of the asset viz., fee-for-service arrangements, and in service delivery which could on occasion, cost several multiples of the first cost of the plant itself.
CEO
Conserval Engineering Inc, SolarWall
said: On 02/06/2011
There are some very serious issues regarding renewable thermal energy in UK and Germany that have not been told. At present both governments are excluding solar air heating in favour of their own technologies and industries which produce solar water heating panels. In Canada last year, solar air heating systems out sold all other solar thermal systems and yet, our technology is not accepted as a renewable energy technology in Germany and in the UK Renewable Heat Incentive dated March 2011. These governments are depriving their citizens of benefiting from improved solar heating technologies.
The UK Dept of Energy & Climate Change has introduced a Renewable Heat Incentive and it has a major flaw in that it excludes solar air heating and especially transpired solar collectors.
There is an opportunity for a University to become the experts in solar air technology.
I have taken a few sections from the attached report and provided my own comments on them.
Summary
The Government will take a phased approach to implementing the RHI. Initially, in the first phase, long-term tariff support will be targeted at the big emitters in the non-domestic sector. This sector, which covers everything from large-scale industrial heating to small business and community heating projects, will provide the vast majority of the renewable heat needed to meet our targets and represents the most cost-effective way of increasing the level of renewable heat. The Government therefore wants to provide support now in order to kick-start take-up in this sector. These buildings are heated with air and heating water to heat air is not cost effective.
Annex A does not include solar air heating.
Page 10 – The first phase of RHI tariffs will only support the non-domestic sectors. These sectors represent the most cost-effective way of delivering renewable heat, which will help us meet our renewables targets and reduce carbon emissions. We therefore want to introduce support now so installations can start being built. Excluding solar air heating and transpired collectors contradicts this statement.
P 34 – Technologies supported
We will only provide incentives for technologies which are in commercial use in the UK. SolarWall is in commercial use in UK and likely has more square metres of collectors in use for heating industrial buildings than solar water collectors – see http://www.CAGroup.ltd.uk
P 37 – Solar thermal
Solar thermal technologies collect heat from the sun onto a collector which transfers the heat energy to a working liquid. This liquid can then be used directly to provide hot water within a building, or an exchanger can transfer the heat from the working liquid to the water.
Solar thermal panels (liquid filled flat plate or evacuated tube solar collectors) will be eligible for support. Government is picking winners and losers as they are supporting only expensive solar technologies and excluding lower cost solar air systems
P 40 – Direct air heating
Technologies which deliver renewable heat directly through hot/warm air will not be supported in the RHI from the outset. This means technologies such as ground or water source to air heat pumps; biomass kilns; furnaces; ovens and air heaters will not be able to claim the RHI. We will, however, look at whether and how these technologies could be included in the RHI from 2012.
There are a number of reasons for not including these technologies from the start of the scheme, which are primarily practical. Our methodology is to meter the heat generated and pay the RHI on that basis, however, there are practical difficulties with metering direct air heating, rather than water and steam. Furthermore, there is insufficient evidence of the costs of these technologies on which to base the RHI tariffs. We are monitoring solar air systems around the world and other governments (USA, Canada, France etc) are able to monitor solar air systems.
P 42 – Technologies and fuels excluded from the scheme
Transpired solar thermal panels
A small number of stakeholders have argued that direct air heating or transpired solar panels should be supported under the RHI. These technologies will not be included as they are not counted as a renewable technology under the RED. This is the most damming statement for the Minister and if left as is, and it will certainly come back to haunt him. SolarWall is the most cost effective solar air technology currently available and it is being manufactured and sold in UK and in many other countries.
Professor
Open University
said: On 03/06/2011
Free markets and technology development
‘When storms come, some build walls, some are thrown by the wind, others build windmills’.
Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher
Given the urgency of responding to climate change, the move to low carbon energy seems unstoppable, even by the recession, but how do we best proceed to develop and deploy the appropriate technology?
When it comes to deciding on which technologies to support, and how best to support them, there is basically an ideological split in views.
While those from the left of centre see a key role for government direction and often tend to favour renewables over nuclear, right of centre free-market competition enthusiasts are basically after a system in which targets are removed and markets, perhaps suitably modified by carbon or energy taxes, decide on technologies – which to develop and which to deploy.
The trouble is that, as we have seen with the EU Emission Trading System, unless very tight carbon caps can be imposed (which is politically hard across the complete EU, especially in a recession), trading can be very lucrative (and even corrupted), but not many emissions are saved – it doesn’t drive many carbon saving projects and the ones it does drive are the easy, cheap, short term options. Market oriented support mechanisms, like the UK’s Renewables Obligation, similarly just focus on the ‘near market’ options- it doesn’t support the earlier innovative phase of technological development.
Those adhering to a more left of centre view, argue that you need targets and support mechanisms like Feed In Tariffs, to force the pace. And more support for less developed options for the next phase. That does mean you may incur extra costs, but they argue, that is an investment in the future- helping the technologies to mature and fall in price, so that overall costs then fall, at least in the longer term – especially given that then, less use need be made of increasingly expensive fossil and nuclear technology.
Oddly, given that it has been around for some decades, some free market enthusiast seem sanguine about providing support for developing nuclear technology, but sometimes argue that we should wait until renewables have developed more before supporting their wide diffusion. Failing that, free market enthusiasts may say that shale gas means that there is a new, rival, cheaper and plentiful option, which can be made lower carbon with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
Many governments, under pressure to cut emission and maintain security of supply, but also to cut costs, would clearly like that, but they are also aware the CCS may not work effectively or economically on a large scale, and that CCS, and certainly Shale gas extraction, may not be socially accepted or environmentally sound .
So they hedge their bets – backing nuclear, renewables and CCS more or less equally, while recognising that each of them may be problematic, nuclear, especially so, after Fukushima.. But the same is true for renewable – progress is seen as slow at least in some countries – even if, arguably, that is mainly to do with the way some governments have approached providing support.
The three pronged approach (renewables, nuclear, CCS) may be portrayed as more diverse and robust than having just one or two, spreading risk. Or you could see it as diluting efforts- you may end up developing none of them successfully. And it could be argued that, for example, renewables are not just one option, but several, so that, if you want diversity, they represent a better deal, at various scales and levels of development.
There are of course also some cross cutting technologies, moving away from just electricity production, like CHP/co-gen linked to district heating and possibly heat stores. That can be, and mostly is, fired using fossil fuels, but once established, heating networks can be supplied using biomass as a fuel and possibly also large solar arrays- there are some large solar -fed DH projects already in existence in N Europe, some linked to interseasonal heat stores. It is sometimes argued, usually by those on the centre left, that this more collective approach to heating and power production is better technically and economically than the market driven ‘microgen’ domestic scale technologies.
That division of opinion shapes priorities for research and innovation. Should we be focussing on new cheap micro generation devices that can be sold on the conventional market, or on infrastructure issues like heat transmission and storage?
It’s the same in the wider area of overall energy supply and use, although here the ideological fault lines can get a little tangled. For example, advocates of large scale HVDC supergrid links often argue that they can open up wider markets to more competition, while some microgen enthusiasts trade on the idea that consumers can, to a degree, become independent of wider markets and corporate control (as long as they buy the kit!). However, they may both agree on the need for smart meters, although they may not share the same perspective on who will benefit most, economically, from them – producers or consumers.
I’m not saying that all the big energy innovation and deployment issues of the day can be framed in simple ideological terms. Some are based on more general technical concerns and issues. For example, should we be focussing on electricity, as an easy to transmit but hard to store energy vector, or gas/hydrogen/heat, as easier to store, with the potential for negative carbon if biomass use is combined with CCS. But even here there are some possible political divergencies, although also some overlaps.
The ‘heat and pipe’ lobby stresses ideas like biogas production, the use of solar for hydrogen production, and on the utilisation side, district heating, and conversions and storage of excess electricity from wind generation as heat. The electricity lobby is backed by nuclear enthusiasts and by some renewable energy supporters, who see electricity as supplying heat and battery electric transport power. Interestingly though, much of the new nuclear R&D in the USA is aimed at developing new reactors for process heating for industry and maybe for hydrogen synfuel production, for vehicle use. And perhaps even for CHP/district heating. So we may be seeing radically different technologies being developed for maybe similar end uses.
How does my perhaps rather laboured attempt at an ideological account stand up when you look at specific countries/regions and their programmes? The USA has adopted a market driven approach, avoiding carbon caps and targets, while the EU has adopted the EU Emission Trading System, which is bureaucratically defined, but market driven. In addition, many EU countries have introduced Feed-In Tariffs (FiTs).
The FiTs have clearly worked to boost renewable – putting countries like Germany ahead of all others, initially, in the deployment of wind – at lower cost per kW and per kWh than market let mechanisms, like the UK’s Renewable Obligation (RO) quota/certificate trading system. Basically FiTs provided a more secure investment climate, making it easier and cheaper to finance projects, including innovative projects. So much so, that the UK has now introduced its own small FiT system and is planning to replace the RO entirely – although, in a backward looking move, possibly by a form of competitive Feed In Tariff system, with tenders/auctions. Whether that would work remains to be seen, but it certainly needs a new approach since, so far, using a market led approach, it has only developed its huge renewable resource very limited extent.
Free market advocates nevertheless point to the US, where renewable energy deployment has now begun to accelerate rapidly under what amounts to a free market ‘technology push’ approach – with the US taking the lead in wind power from Germany as a result.
However China has now taken the lead from them, in wind power especially. How do you characterise their approach? They use Feed-In Tariffs but also auctions, and they have state targets and central directives, but also commercial enterprises.
Back in the EU, the recession and concerns about passing high cost on to consumers, has led governments to throttle back on the FiTs, with caps and tariff cuts for PV solar. It has been argued, usually by free market advocates, that PV was perhaps not well suited to FiT support since it started out with high costs. The counter argument is that, if the FiT system had been left to work, costs would have fallen- cutting back was a failure of nerve, or worse, a reflection of a preference for nuclear.
And so the debate continues. Maybe the IPCC was right to say in its recent report on renewables that ‘There is no one-size-fits-all policy for encouraging renewables’. But equally, there do seem to be some ideological fault lines.
MEP
European Parliament
said: On 03/06/2011
How can we speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future?
There is currently an increased global competition for technological innovation. Unfortunately, the EU is facing a widening technology gap relative to the United States and China – which we must make up! We should therefore focus our attention on becoming innovation leaders and accelerating a targeted technology offensive at both European and national levels. Placing eco-innovation and energy efficiency at the heart of the European climate and energy strategy is the best way to ensure a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions without endangering our path to economic recovery.
With the 2008 Climate and Energy Package and the 20-20-20 goals, the European Union set itself ground-breaking and ambitious targets. Now, instead of discussing new targets, we should focus on the necessary tools and instruments to achieve these goals. This requires efforts at national and EU level as well as a fair contribution from every sector to lowering emissions, increasing the percentage of renewable energies and becoming more energy efficient.
Furthermore, we need to persuade our international partners, especially other industrialized countries, to commit themselves to comparable emissions reductions targets in the framework of a global, binding agreement. In the case of a global agreement, which I will continue to fight for at the next climate conference in Durban, I would support reducing emissions by 30% until 2020.
However, in the absence of a similar reduction targets by others, we should not focus our attention on discussing new unilateral targets. Higher targets could result in increased production costs in Europe, thus risking carbon leakage. Carbon leakage would, in turn, result in higher global greenhouse gas emissions, since in most of the world, production occurs with lower environmental standards and less consideration for the climate. Thus, the risk of businesses relocating to areas where there are no similar climate protection laws would endanger our two-degree global warming target!
Especially at a time when European unemployment is high and our economic recovery fragile, risking relocation is also economically irresponsible. We need European and non-European businesses alike to see Europe as the foremost location for business, for eco-innovation and for skilled labour. This is in the interest of our environment, our climate, our citizens and our economy!
I am therefore unsure that unilaterally increasing our reduction targets automatically leads to more technological innovation. Instead, investments from both the public and the private sectors are needed. Our businesses also need predictability though clear rules, long-term planning security and legal certainty. This is especially the case for those in the ETS sector.
It is our job to create the right incentives for the private sector to invest in innovation, in technology and in research and development. And we need to do our part by devising an ambitious technology initiative in close cooperation with the Member States and our European enterprises.
Professor of Energy Physics
University of Athens
said: On 06/06/2011
How can we speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future?
Innovation in energy technologies is continuous and can contribute significantly to improving energy efficiency and developing new systems and techniques.
Innovative ideas have to be translated into products and systems. Unfortunately this is not always the case as only a minority of excellent ideas ever reach the market. Likewise, many products based on innovative ideas never find their real market position and therefore struggle to stay alive.
While innovative ideas developed by well-established entrepreneurs and often academic institutions can easily find their way to market, many excellent ideas developed by less organized bodies struggle as most of these organizations cannot afford the cost and effort (from a financial and scientific perspective) that is required to support, identify and push good innovative ideas.
Therefore it is imperative to develop simple and affordable support mechanisms to advance innovative ideas. It is also extremely important to support already developed innovative products in the market through demonstration projects that give recognition to new and efficient ideas and products.
President
JX Crystals Inc
said: On 06/06/2011
If we want implemented innovations in the energy sector, the first thing to do is to treat energy security the way we treat national defense. That means eliminate the cost share requirement for small companies to participate in DOE projects. Our company does not seek DOE contracts because we can not afford the cost share. So we go for DOD contracts or NASA contracts. Cost share for R&D is absurd because the pay back time is too far in the future. Also, the DOE should study the TRL (Technology Readiness Level) path used by the DOD.
Next, we need government investment in new energy demonstration projects. We also need government investment in automated manufacturing. How about government equity investments in small companies with buy out clauses? How about simply studying how China is supporting their manufacturing companies?
Finally, we need to forget the idea that government can not pick technology winners. We need long term government industrial planning with smart government scientist and engineers and politicians who listen and understand technical input. Generally speaking, we need politicians who did not skip science and math classes. Also, we need to expose scientist and engineers in school to business and accounting practices.
In summary, we have innovative ideas but their implementation requires a lot of money and intelligent coordination. At present, the Chinese government is intelligently choosing the innovative ideas from US scientist and small businesses and investing in manufacturing product in China and selling that product back to us and making a lot of money off our ideas. Why is that happening?
Director, Energy, Principal Analyst
Navigant Consulting
said: On 06/06/2011
For over thirty years the photovoltaic industry has excelled in technology innovation – it is an industry of true believers, committed innovators and creative thinkers. The result of this innovation is an energy technology that reliably generates electricity for at least 25 years, but, likely does so for >35 years. There are solar systems in the field that are >30 years old. R&D in solar is an incremental process, basically, lab scale, pilot scale, commercial scale … it takes time. The Eureka moments for solar technologies are years in the making, brought about by the commitment of scientists, engineers, business people and investors. Technology development cannot be rushed, but, it can be made immeasurably easier with government investment in markets, technology development and manufacturing. Speeding up innovation is not the point – nor should it be the point. Reliable support of markets and technology development – for the long haul and not at the whim of whichever political party is in office is the point. Education of energy consumers is also important along with transparency about the subsidies that other energy technologies receive. The opaque subsidies that conventional energy enjoys (and have enjoyed for years) are roadblocks to the needed support that PV and all solar technologies need in order to help global societies move into a future powered by renewable technologies.
Professor
Aalto University
said: On 07/06/2011
How can we speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future?
When entering the market, new technologies often tend to be more expensive than their incumbent alternatives. This is also true in energy. Energy is a basic commodity meaning that economic factors often determine the market take-up of any new innovation. Green consumers and pioneers may be willing to pay more for clean energy, but globally it is the economics that seems to set the rules of the game.
Therefore one important message to policy makers is to pay attention to reducing the cost of energy innovations. In addition, new technologies have to fulfill a range of non-economic factors, for example environmental standards, safety, social acceptance, etc many of which have indirect economic implications as well. Unfortunately, the inherent positive characteristics of new energy technologies such as sustainability or security seldom get internalized in the energy price.
To reach cost-effectiveness new energy technologies still need the public hand. In Germany, the generous feed-in-tariff support system has resulted in rapid uptake of renewable electricity. Once a market is created the industries will be able to quickly scale-up in volume and respond to induced demand.
To speed up innovations one may employ both technology push and market pull type of measures. If the new technologies are too far off from cost breakeven, e.g. fuel cells, hydrogen or marine energy technologies, it is more effective to invest in research and development to make the new technology better and cheaper. While for e.g. wind power which is approaching the breakeven point, shifting more to measures stimulating capacity and volume build-up yielding scale of economics benefits could be more effective. Therefore mastering the whole innovation chain is very important. In this respect, the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan is a highly relevant integrated research and development effort. Its planned budget of €50 billion has not yet been settled.
How much could the new technologies contribute if they were prioritized, how fast could a change into a clean energy future take place, and how much would that ultimately cost are relevant questions to address here. Many recent studies and scenarios indicate that renewables and energy efficiency together could stand for most of the future energy need. If their growth followed that of oil or nuclear in their heyday, then wind and solar could stand for nearly half of all electricity by the middle of this century. The extra cost of such as a paradigm shift may range between several thousand billion € and nil depending on the assumptions on time-frame, carbon taxes and pace of cost reductions.
The new energy technologies represent only a few percent of world energy. Their present two-digit growth numbers are more than enough to secure future relevance, but even a stronger preferential position will be necessary to allow a full market lock-in. By 2030 almost all new electric capacity addition needs to be renewable energy if these options were to provide a significant share of all electricity.
To absorb such huge amounts of new renewables, more intensive research and technology development in energy systems and investments in energy infrastructures are required to bridge the present and future energy system. Smart and flexible grids, smart cities etc. are here the keywords.
Advances in bioscience, nanotechnology, materials or IT should not be overlooked either. These may open up on long run radically new avenues in energy – for example roll-to-roll mass-production of solar cells or high-performance batteries. More multidisciplinary research that links technology and socioeconomics is definitely beneficial to understand the societal perspectives of energy. Unfortunately governments have not yet fully grasped these opportunities, but energy research funding remains at a quite low level.
Summarizing, different actions are needed to speed up innovation in energy technologies. A long-term perspective going beyond the private sector’s time horizon is necessary. It is imperative to bring new energy technologies to a cost-competitive level which will require them to be given a favored position including adequate financial support, but emphasizing at the same time effective commercialization strategies. It is more than self-evident that politicians and policymakers are among the key stakeholders to enable such a development.
President
SCIPIO Biofuels Inc., USA
said: On 08/06/2011
As a long-term R&D guy and algae cultivation system inventor I have to say that speeding up innovation is not necessarily difficult. The degree of motivation to obtain these new technologies has been noteworthy for a few reasons.
1. Large corporations who decided that it was a better use of company funds to boost profits instead of investing in what has traditionally been 100% tax-deductible R&D are now spending ridiculous amounts of money to advertise and sponsor technology “contests” and/or “competitions” with one of the stipulations of participation being the corporation gets virtually free use of any IP that participates, not just the winners. – Ethical? Hardly. But, since the general public thinks winning $200,000 or even $1 Million contest is winning a lot of money. For a corporation needing a solution worth multiple billions of dollars that they wee too short-sighted to generate themselves, such a technology grab represents the virtual theft of IP, and the lowest form of Managerial incompetence. They should have kept their R&D programs even if the “uncertainty” that comes with it ,akes the CEO “uncomfortable”. Grow up.
2. The technology is probably already available somewhere already. Assuming I am not the only person with technical abilities who has spent time “tinkering” in the garage, my experience has most often been that of being disrespected, trivialized and de-valued. But, not so de-valued that eventually I had to refuse the insultingly low-ball offer for licensing. Yes, sometimes inventors think they have won the lotto when they haven’t, that’s true. Much more frequently it is the seeker of technology that attempts to brow-beat the perceived “idiot inventor” into a lower price for the results of his efforts. When intimidation doesn’t work, usually the next tactic goes something like, “Would you rather have .2% of something or 100% of nothing?” This is the textbook definition of coercion, and has gotten more than one such egotist tossed out of my office on his ear.
3. Even within a corporation to simply tell an employee that if they think of something useful to the company, it belongs to the company, period is a fantastic way to assure nobody is inclined to open their mouths. Would it kill a corporation to break off a tiny extra residual income to the Janitor who saved the company X millions of dollars per year for the life cycle of the particular innovation? No it wouldn’t. Doing so would however, reduce turn-over to almost zero and provide all the incentive in the world to contribute to the suggestion box.
BOTTOM LINE: If a corporation is not willing to pay the cost of doing business (continuing R&D), then it necessarily follows they should be ready to pay a premium to the individual in his garage who had the wisdom to accomplish by himself and at his own expense what the big powerful corporation could not. The value is not completely within the IP itself, but also largely within the fact that the technological innovation already existed when the corporation went looking for it. There is a baseless tendency to completely discount the value of the time, vision and money invested by the inventor sometimes for many years before the corporation showed up, seeking help to increase their bottom line, through intimidation. The pittance a corporation will save by using unethical business practices against a technology provider is nothing compared to the profits lost by the delays caused by the corporation’s self-imposed obligation to play games with the people they should be treating much better than has historically been the case.
The “win-win” situation has another name. Fairness.
Professor for Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage Systems
Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA) RWTH Aachen University
said: On 08/06/2011
Generally, I am convinced, that innovation in energy technology can take place only where implementation in real-world systems goes alongside with intensive research and development.
Energy technology systems are typically of large scale and for developing and demonstrating new technologies also full scale demonstrators are necessary. At the same point of time innovations are almost in all cases more expensive than just doing the same thing as always.
Therefore it is extremely difficult to get private money for large scale demonstrators of new and innovative technologies. Costs can come down only if the market growth.
Therefore we need mechanisms which assure investors not to lose money with the investments. But if society assures the investment, it is on the other hand necessary,that research groups get access to the demonstrators to make sure, that a maximum of knowledge is generated and the knowledge is not only with on company. If the company
wants to protect their knowledge, funding must be limited well above the real costs of the investment.
National Profession Officer
Environmental Health, WHO Nepal
said: On 09/06/2011
Non renewable energies are exhausting. Renewable energies are are scaling up but still needs speedy action for innovative technology to meet increasing demand in modern world. In my opinion following action can be taken for speed up innovative technology to secure future sustainable energy
1. Replacing non renewable with renewable energy itself ensures sustainable energy for future
2. All developing countries that are unable to construct renewable energy like hydropower should be supported with global effort so that they will stop using non renewable energy
3. There has to be global effort for developing energy technology for generation and efficient use. But innovation should b encouraged at local level too to tap innovativeness of people at their own place
4. There has to be some kind of incentives and rewards for innovation. Clean development mechanism is one way.
5. Encouraging people to live more natural life with low energy consumption
Founding Member | Energy Analyst
Market-Melange.com
said: On 09/06/2011
Different means are at our disposal to tackle the speed of innovation. But before we do so, a preliminary reflection is needed on the components of the proposed goal: an energy future that is 1. secure and 2. sustainable.
Both elements sound self-explanatory, but are less straightforward than one could expect. What is, for instance, exactly meant by a ‘secure’ energy future? Are we talking about safety issues? If this is the case, we should be a bit down to earth. The recent nuclear disaster has indeed led to thousands of victims amongst our Japanese friends. But, to put it bluntly, there has been no nuclear victim yet. All have been due to the earthquake and the tsunami. More generally speaking, if ‘secure’ stands for ’safe’, we should end completely nuclear and – all – fossil energy, and only keep the very green ones, which brings us basically the answer on the question.
If, on the other hand, ‘secure’ points at the need of sufficient production capacity and/or supply, one cannot provide one single omnivalent answer – even on the European level – except if we only go for mass renewables (and suppose that we will be able, in some way, to produce sufficiently).
In both cases the conclusion is the same: only the 100% green option would be virtually completely safe or make us virtually independent of any extra-European energy source.
If attainable, necessary actions on innovation wouldn’t then be too hard to elaborate, requiring ‘only’ equilibrium between focus, means and policy.
Using ‘sustainable’ as a trigger for reflection brings us onto a more skewed reflection path. What remains, nowadays, from the definition of ‘Sustainable’? Sustainable solutions are rarely only developed with the Green Trinity in mind – Impact on Environment, Impact on Society, Impact on Economy. Most large scale projects are indeed driven by the latter, and mostly focused on the short term – mid term at best.
In that case, one could, indeed, still focus on the level of aimed energy efficiency, or the role of lasting energy sources. But which aspect should prevail in our approach on speeding of innovation in energy technology? Economy? Efficiency? There is clearly not a very straightforward answer on that question, given that it depends on different aspects.
Our devil’s advocate reflection on the ‘security’ and the ‘sustainability’ of the question at hand has clearly highlighted the problem – but also an answer – on the entire debate. If we restrict the exercise to the European market (and therefore put aside the important role that international market forces play), speeding up innovation on energy technology requires first of all a clear picture on what we want and where want to go. This will require 1. a clearly articulated choice on the aimed portfolio, 2. a clear policy on how to build it and how to get there, 3. a detailed timeline that includes intermediate deadlines that are more closeby (and therefore more restrictive) than the existing long term dates, and 4. the belonging budgets.
Overall, innovation can be a driver for technology. And technology can be a catalyst for change. But neither technology nor innovation should be the aim. It should remain a means to a goal. And it all starts with defining and committing to the goal. A real goal. With real commitment. In a real time framework.
Professor of Building Physics
University of Applied Sciences Stuttgart HFT, Department of Civil Engineering, Building Physics and Economics
said: On 09/06/2011
Renewable electricity is progressing well, as the feed-in tariff provides a good economic basis for the technology development. The very rapid growth of the PV industry based on crystalline silicon, but also on emerging thin film and organic solar cell technologies is a good example. Also offshore wind energy has very good prospects for development, as feed-in tariffs are currently increasing to support this new technology.
The renewable heat and cold market faces much stronger barriers, as the decentralized nature of solar heat and cold production in individual homes and office buildings makes it much more difficult to create something similar to the feed-in tariff. A solution for market development and further innovation in the solar heating and cooling sector could therefore be based on regulations. For example, the German Government introduced obligatory fractions of solar thermal heat for all new buildings, some states such as Baden Württemberg even for existing buildings. A very new development is the inclusion of solar thermal cooling into the regulations, i.e. that new buildings with air conditioning need to cover a certain fraction by renewable cold.
Only if significant market development can be expected, companies will invest in research and development of new technologies, such as thermally driven sorption cooling systems, very efficient heat rejection, high efficiency compression chillers coupled to photovoltaics etc.
To increase the renewable energy contribution to building energy supply, it is also crucial to improve building efficiency, i.e. to reduce demand. Here again, energy saving legislation, which is also applied to the existing building stock, is extremely important to increase the rate of building rehabilitation and to support the market introduction of new materials or systems, which currently still have very high costs (vacuum insulation, triple glazings, heat recovery in ventilation system etc).
Clean Energy Policy Analyst
The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
said: On 10/06/2011
How can we speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future?
Many policymakers and countries have implemented what they believe are the best approaches – and I can imagine many in this forum will espouse approval of these methods and even call for their expansion. But in most cases, current approaches are limited, misguided, and don’t actually spur energy innovation. The simple answer to how we speed up energy innovation is, well, deliberately focusing our efforts on the energy innovation system. In that sense this isn’t rocket science, yet a number of barriers exist to doing so.
The first hurdle to pass is recognizing that we need to make the unsubsidized cost of clean energy cheap. We don’t have all the clean energy technologies we need. Mature vehicle batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and big-box nuclear energy cost more than building a new coal or natural gas plant. And their decade’s long support and development shows that many of these technologies are limited in their potential of cost curve reductions. This means we need advanced energy storage, high-efficiency solar cells, non-critical materials, higher output wind turbines, small modular nuclear reactors, and advanced biofuels – all of which require numerous breakthroughs in science, nanotechnology, genomics, computing, and engineering. We can’t subsidize or regulate our way out of this. Before we can contemplate schemes aimed at accelerating the adoption of clean energy we need to develop clean energy options that can stand on their own in the global marketplace. At the end of the day, deployment half measures get back to the need for supporting innovation.
The second hurdle to pass is recognizing that subsidies, tariffs, regulations, and mandates won’t substantially speed up energy innovation. In response to the cost difference between fossil fuels and mature clean tech, many countries have implemented deployment policies aimed at artificially moving these technologies to market. This means government subsidies, feed-in tariffs, regulations, carbon prices, and mandates. But given global economic uncertainty and politically untenable deficits, implementing a long-term deployment-only approach is not possible. Many advocates counter argue that subsidizing mature tech will spur innovation, providing long-term cost reductions. But in a recent ITIF report, we showed why this isn’t true. It’s straightforward – we can’t speed up innovation by focusing the lion’s share of our efforts on only one stage of technology development.
The third hurdle to pass is recognizing that speeding up energy innovation requires actually supporting the entire energy innovation system. Deployment policies are just one of many approaches needed. But without supporting innovation, their impact will be relatively small. Speeding up energy innovation requires four cohesive approaches:
First, energy innovation needs a skilled and versatile workforce. According to a recent ITIF report, only five percent of the workforce is STEM-related and the number of STEM educated workers has remained the same over the last decade. So, if we really want to quickly create a sustainable energy future, the world needs to begin educating more scientists and engineers as well as retool the current workforce for the emerging clean energy economy. It’s a decades old problem that needs new approaches.
Second, energy innovation needs a new physical infrastructure. In the 20th century, the United States built road, aviation, and IT networks that expanded markets and connected the country and aided the deployment of breakthrough technologies. The next-generation of energy requires a long-overdue electricity grid upgrade, electric vehicle charging station infrastructure, and greater use of smart technologies in our homes, businesses, and utilities to facilitate the use of new technologies. Some of this is already going on, but it’s going to take additional significant investments.
Third, energy innovation requires greater investment in research, development and early commercialization. Currently, global energy R&D investment is lacking by all measures. According to the International Energy Agency, global investment in RD&D needs to increase 200 to 500 percent from 2010 levels to create the steady supply of new energy technologies and ideas we need. Traditionally the public sector has filled this gap and it’s needed now more than ever to spur the breakthroughs we need. At no less, pubic investment in R&D is the most significant investment governments can make in our energy future (as well as our economic future).
And fourth, we need to rapidly develop a strong public-private based energy innovation system. Traditionally, innovation systems are a dynamic network of institutions, actors, government, businesses, and arrangements that facilitate technology development, but as it stands the energy innovation system needs some work. One way of fixing it is by promoting greater public-private partnerships, collaborations, and clusters. In fact, many global industries are already moving from an in-house innovation model to a distributed inter-organization innovation model. This needs to hold true for the energy sector as well. Therefore, a defining characteristic of innovation support should be to leverage private sector buy-in, multidisciplinary development teams, cross-cutting industry collaborations, collaborative R&D tax credits, and regional innovation clusters similar to the famous Silicon Valley. Policymakers should no longer assume that innovation is the result of a lone inventors “eureka moment” or two scientists tinkering in a garage.
In conclusion, the last century’s’ worth of major innovations have been the product of public-private collaboration and support of the innovation system. But typically, we assume that it takes 20-40 years for a new breakthrough innovation to travel from basic idea to commercialized product or service. We can’t wait that long. We cannot assume the current energy challenge is equivalent to the IT revolution or the development of the automobile or airplane. The assumed timeframe of energy innovation needs to be cut in half and the way of speeding up innovation is doubling down on supporting and strengthening the energy innovation system as a whole, not just one or two parts of it. In the end of the day, what we are doing is creating a global innovation system from scratch to develop advanced energy technologies at a fraction of the time. It’s a first for the world, but it’s a necessity.
Reports referred to above:
http://www.itif.org/publications/inducing-innovation-what-carbon-price-can-and-can%E2%80%99t-do
http://www.itif.org/files/2010-refueling-innovation-economy.pdf
Chairman
IDTechEx
said: On 10/06/2011
About 100 years ago, Thomas Edison famously said that electricity should be made where it is needed. Even he may have been surprised at the solar wristwatch, the torch with a crank handle and other widespread evidence of this today. We call it energy harvesting when it is applied to small devices and to mobile things such as vehicles, where replacing power stations is not the primary objective. How can we speed up innovation in energy harvesting technology to ensure a secure and sustainable energy future? Here are some suggestions.
Wrong research focus?
Firstly, university research is heavily biassed towards piezoelectrics with almost nothing on electrodynamics. It would be whimsical to say that this is because piezoelectric harvesting was discovered ”only” 130 years ago whereas the dynamo predates this. One professor told us, only half jokingly, that it is impossible to get research funds for ”variants on a dynamo” whereas proposals for abstruse piezo investigations are well received.
Electrodynamics is by far the most successful form of energy harvesting and this is set to continue. Despite the paucity of research, we see a steady stream of commercially significant inventions such as regenerative braking, regenerative soaring of propellor electric aircraft and sailing boats driving turbine generators from ingested water or by dragging their propellors in reverse. Add to that electrodynamic foetal heart monitors and radios in Africa that you wind up. It is electrodynamics that is harvesting the energy of the heart to drive implanted defibrillators and pacemakers experimentally. Piezoelectrics were replaced by electrodynamics in the world’s most successful wireless building controls without batteries – those of the EnOcean Alliance.
In vehicles, nothing rivals the kilowatts generated by energy harvesting shock absorbers, active suspension and regenerative braking. By contrast, piezo research has delivered the piezoelectric gas lighter and a few modestly successful piezo generators in building controls and consumer goods but the high voltage is problematic and the reliability and narrow acoustic band is all too often an issue. However, broad band piezoelectric generators have recently been demonstrated as a drop-in replacement for AA batteries – you have to shake them.
One should not knock the piezo opportunity but there should be at least a matching level of research on electrodynamic harvesting. This would build on much greater success and probably have more chance of success, if history is anything to go by. We wish to generate electricity from the flexing of the body of a vehicle and introduce printed conductors in wound components, preferably without elements subject to price hikes such as copper. Airliners will become silent electric vehicles when on the tarmac – no tugs that are never available when you want them – no deafening waste of money from dirty jet engines used when queing for takeoff. However, the electrified nose wheels being developed will use DC motors when better AC motors would provide regenerative braking as well. We do not recommend stealing from research funding for photovoltaics because that continues to generate huge and wide-ranging commercial success as an energy harvesting technology. We eagerly await the promised low-cost transparent flexible photovoltaics and flexible photovoltaics that harvests ultraviolet, visible and infrared frequencies all together, for example, not least for vehicles.
However, there is much too much tunnel vision in focussing on power station replacement by PV and therefore the holy grail of grid parity. We calculate that the opportunity for photovoltaics on consumer goods and vehicles, taken together, is at least as big as the opportunity in replacing power stations. It is more easily realised but it calls for optimisation of very different parameters not in the minds of most researchers such as, ”Can a baby safely chew it?”and ”Is uncontrolled disposal OK?”(see ”Energy Harvesting 2011-2021” IDTechEx 2011). More PV money should be directed at this second huge market potential if necessary stealing from the distant dream of economic photovoltaic power stations.
Supercapacitors and supercabatteries are linked to energy harvesting. They are becoming partial replacements for traction batteries not just enhancements, so why does our computer analysis of 40,000 energy storage patents in ”Advanced Energy Storage Technologies: Patent Trends and Company Positioning” (IDTechEx 2011) reveal that supercapacitor/ supercabattery patenting is not on the increase? On the other hand, one of the most important enabling technologies for energy harvesting is printed electronics, a term taken to include printed electrics. Why does nearly all the national and EC research money on this go on organic versions when most are inorganic or composite and will continue to be that way? Do we really have to call a project poly this or that to land the cash? Are we running a support charity for organic chemists or optimising wealth creation whatever the chemistry?
Wrong approach to vehicles?
Electric vehicles, both hybrid and pure electric, are clearly the future but too many people think that stops at on-road vehicles. They should cross fertilise best practice between land, water and airborne electric vehicles. After all, multi-mode energy harvesting is often seen with autonomous underwater vehicles and this has lessons for on-road and military land vehicles. Third generation traction batteries such as lithium sulphur have appeared in aircraft and military vehicles, where optimised coupling to energy harvesting is likely first to occur. The great temperature differences between the inside and outside of an aircraft are an attraction to those with the new thin film thermovoltaic harvesters but most concentrate on the conventional part of a hybrid car. Multimode harvesting for wireless sensor networks, actuators and low power laminar LED and OLED lights should be of great interest for land, water and air electric vehicles but cars are the focus for now. In other words both the technology options and business opportunities for energy harvesting in vehicles are far wider than commonly realised. IDTechEx has recently provided the antidote to electric vehicle events that concentrate on little more than cars. We have the new event series, ”Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air” in Stuttgart Germany and San Jose USA and that has struck a chord. Expect to see more vehicle manufacturers making land, water and air electric vehicles and more component suppliers selling horizontally across all these sectors, not least offering the energy harvesters and associated batteries, both increasingly printed. For the largest events on printed electronics see the IDTechEx ”Printed Electronics” series in Santa Clara later this year and Germany next year.
http://www.idtechex.com
Academic Director of Begbroke Science Park
University of Oxford
said: On 13/06/2011
1) Europe needs to get more investment into Solar Energy development, and realise that very high levels of investment are needed. I think that for setting up new production facilities is certain to cost in excess of 250M Euros for either PV or chemical generation.
2) The issue of energy storage needs to be addressed for solar and other intermittent energy sources. Europe is lagging and this is serious. We urgently need investment in research and development in energy storage of all types.
3) We should try to dissuade European Governments from using “feed-in tariffs” unless they are for the deployment of products made in Europe. Currently the approach being adopted in the UK is simply benefitting foreign companies who sell us the devices and plant!
Items 1 and 2 require there to be much more funding at National and EU level especially in the nanotechnology area.
MEP, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
European Parliament
said: On 15/06/2011
Any kind of major undertaking should start with an ambitious but realistic target setting. When it comes to Europe’s future energy policy it should be the following: in 2050, Europe is run by 100 per cent renewable energy sources.
The shape of tomorrow’s energy policy is defined today. Clear and ambitious policy measures are critical in reaching the target we’ve set – what is more, we must initiate these changes now. Tools enabling a real change are at hand, what is needed is true will to make it happen. What we need is more public and private financing in support of new technologies; increase in R&D spending aimed at supporting new, sustainable innovations; investment in profoundly renewing Europe’s outdated energy infrastructure and, above all, greater policy coherence whereby all relevant EU-policies work together towards reaching the goal of sustainable and secure energy future.
The economic and technical potentials for exploiting renewable energy sources exist, what is lacking at the moment is sufficient political will to help the renewables break even with the conventional sources of power. The disadvantaged position comes from decades of large financial and structural support given to the fossil and nuclear power plants. According to the Worldwatch Institute the world coal subsidies alone total $63 billion per year. All in all it is estimated that conventional energy sources receive $250-300 billion in subsidies every year. In Europe, of all subsidies given to energy sectors, 90 percent go to fossil fuels or nuclear energy, and only 10 percent for the renewables. In addition, over 50 percent of the European R&D budget supports the conventional energy mix of fossil fuels and nuclear and only 8 percent is dedicated to different forms of renewable energies.
Thus, a reform of the distorting subsidies system is an essential part of the fundamental reform of the European energy system. Eliminating harmful subsidies and reallocating the funds in support of sustainable energy technologies means we actually wouldn’t need that much “new” money – just money more wisely spent. The examples of Germany and Spain prove the efficiency of feed-in tariffs, which after the initial stage can be slowly phased out. This would make the subsidies rather a public investment into a cleaner and ultimately cheaper energy sources. Same goes for Europe’s R&D -spending: more for future while phasing-out research in yesterday’s technologies.
Policy coherence reaches across sectors and member states’ boarders. Public procurement rules, European Investment Bank’s loan policy, cohesion funds and EU and national budgets among others must all be aligned in support of the common goal of a more sustainable energy future. Innovative sources of financing should be further explored. European Commission’s initiative to start up so-called project bonds to help finance the much needed investments into Europe’s infrastructure is a very welcomed one, but other ways to stimulate and encourage private investment into new kinds of energy technologies should be explored with no delay.
President
SmartPower
said: On 20/06/2011
From the National Renewable Energy Lab to pioneering businesses like SolarCity, the United States boasts no shortage of bright minds looking for the next big breakthrough in renewable energy technology. Indeed, we should nurture and reward these innovative minds, and should create policies that fast track their discoveries from the lab to the field.
Yet there’s another piece to our sustainable energy future that is seldom prioritized: effective marketing. For decades, we haven’t have been selling clean energy to the American people in ways that they respond to. In fact, research by my organization, SmartPower, has shown that over the past three decades, the industry itself has done it all wrong. By relegating energy to the political arena, where it remains polarized along party lines, we have guaranteed that all it takes to overturn progressive energy policies is a change in presidential or congressional leadership.
Instead, we should recognize clean energy as what it really is: a consumer issue. Why don’t we treat wind, solar and geothermal like any other product on the market? By selling clean energy like it’s McDonald’s or Coca-Cola, we can get at the heart of why, although more than 84 percent of Americans say they will buy clean energy, less than 3 percent of them actually do.
By researching consumer attitudes on clean energy, my organization has pinpointed the messages that work. We have used those messages to drive innovative online and on-the-ground community outreach campaigns in towns and cities across America. These campaigns create a grassroots army of energy smart consumers who understand the real benefits of wind, solar and other clean sources – cost savings, increased home values, energy independence – and, in turn, are willing to support and build the growing marketplace for new clean energy technologies.
This isn’t an overnight process. But it’s the key to creating receptive audiences for technology and policy that will sustain clean energy for the long term. Building a strong clean energy marketplace, full of educated consumers, is the best way to ensure there will be demand for the latest thin-film solar cells, or for the next wave of offshore wind farms. Today’s tipping points will lead to tomorrow’s profits.
Senior Project Leader
NLAgency
said: On 21/06/2011
Innovation in energy technology is a continuous process. To speed up this process it is important that an early market exist for new technologies, that industries develop better technologies and the research institutions keep on researching future energy technologies.
Speeding up this process means that developments come to the market quicker. This will depend on customers that look for innovative technologies, but also on industry co-operating well with researchers. Governments naturally play a crucial role in the process, because the benefits of a sustainable energy future are not direct felt by most actors. This long term goals can be translated by the governments in policy measures that speed up early markets for new technologies, stimulate industries to develop innovative technologies, stimulate collaboration between industries and researchers and fund long term research. Many governments focus only on one or two items, which hampers innovation in energy technology.
The governments can speed up energy innovation, but the main actors in this area are the industries, end-users and researchers. They should not wait for governments to act, but take their own responsibility in taking already existing opportunities in energy innovation. A sustainable energy future is not only the responsibility for the government and this energy future gives a lot of business opportunities.
Project Leader on Spent Fuel and Separation
Enresa
said: On 21/06/2011
I think that it is necesary to increase the investments in applied research in energy technology on clean and/ or low carbon energy sources taken in account the economics.Energy sostenibility must be taken in account.
Reserach mus be joined to energy plannig and resources on research energy technology must be adequated to the long term planning.
Chairman & Managing Director
Tormacon Limited
said: On 21/06/2011
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Is there a special sauce for stimulating innovation in the energy sector, a concoction to spur cost-effective developments toward solving the climate change problem? Moving to clean energy “is not hopeless at all. We’ve hardly started to invest in energy innovation.”
Innovation is a continuous process, but the history of innovation in four sectors of the U.S. economy that has experienced enormous change and growth: agriculture, chemicals, life sciences, and information technology is a case in point, where innovation has transformed these sectors.
The present technology is not a very acceptable one. Solar collection panel technology is still a little too costly and not quite efficient enough to produce energy that is cheaper than fossil fuel. And the current technology can only be used in places with near constant direct sunlight. Wind turbines are still not quite efficient enough to economically compete either. Also, people complain about their visual obstruction and the noise that they create (the highways they live next to or the lawnmowers cutting their grass don’t seem to be a problem though).
If the current state of our energy consumption continues to be driven by economics and price it seems that renewable energy will have to beat fossil fuels by those rules. So how can we spur research and innovation in renewable energy sources to persevere and continue to improve in method and efficiency as quickly as possible? Solar panels could become more efficient. Their installation could also be simplified and diversified so that their integration into new buildings would be ubiquitous. Wind turbines could also improve efficiency. Issues of scale and zoning could also be addressed so that installing a turbine would not have to go through a lengthy permit and approval process. Why are not wind turbines as common on homes as chimneys and satellite dishes? Or could any of this technology be applied to solutions on the human scale that are drivable, bike-able or wearable?
The opportunities are many. They only have to be developed. The energy problem is a complex and ‘wicked’ one. Change will require a well designed transition towards a global socioeconomic system that incentivizes cleantech research and development, while more efficiently using existing ones, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and clearly communicating the public the main challenges.
We have before us the seemingly impossible task of taking about 80 percent of the carbon out of the energy system in 40 years. I don’t know much about energy, although I know much more now than I did when I started this project. But I’ve spent my life studying innovation, so I thought maybe I could be of some help. I believe energy is the problem of our time. Part of the idea is to bring attention to industries that have experienced radical transformation at great speed, which is just what we need in energy. For example, 100 years ago, half the country worked in agriculture. Now almost no one does. Agriculture has also seen a massive increase in productivity. Some of that is due to mechanization and the use of fossil fuels. But much of it is due to innovation in the breeding of plants and animals, as well as fertilizers and new techniques. There’s a huge amount of human capital and knowledge invested in farming
What sets energy apart from these other industries? The first and most obvious is that it’s difficult to differentiate energy as a product at the delivery point. It just looks like electrons or gas in the tank. The striking thing about these other sectors is that they invented new things that met new customer needs, or existing needs in different ways. Whereas with energy, what we’re looking for is basically the same product but produced in a much cleaner way.
Another difference is the sheer size of the industry. Telecom is now of comparable size by some measures but certainly wasn’t initially. Before the Second World War there was no information technology industry. That’s an important difference when you consider the amount of capital that will be required to green the energy system—it’s very large by the standards of the early years of the other industries we consider. With that said, it’s not a large amount by modern standards. Annual capital investment in telecom is roughly the same order of magnitude as capital investment in energy.
The third and last difference is that with the exception of agriculture, all the other industries we consider were moving into empty spaces. An IT industry? There was no IT industry. Biotechnology? It didn’t exist.
So, it’s a commodity product that can’t be differentiated, the sector already exists, and the change needs to happen at enormous scale.
Why take the trouble to consider the other sectors if they’re so different? They’re the best examples we have of innovation at the speed and order of magnitude that is needed in energy. So the trick is to try and learn from the other sectors while being very much aware of the degree to which what we learn does or does not translate to energy.
The most pressing change needed to drive clean energy innovation is to identify the base. We need to have a price for carbon. Simply trying to improve rates of innovation without simultaneously creating demand for low-carbon energy is unlikely, in my opinion, to have much of an effect. We can pour money into nifty energy technologies, but if there’s no demand that’s not a sustainable solution. Aggressive regulation such that everyone had to reduce and use less carbon-based energy would certainly be helpful. However, my preference would be for a carbon tax or some kind of cap-and-trade regime. We do have the beginnings of that in the renewable portfolio standard approach.
one of the things that I think can be learned by looking at these other sectors is that it’s very unlikely that one can pick the winning technology in advance. The lovely thing about a price for low-carbon energy is that it’s technology neutral. It tells innovators what we want, and lets them explore the many different ways to get there. That seems to be a much more flexible and effective way of supporting innovation.
In many ways, agriculture is the closest to energy. It’s completely pervasive, and it’s fundamental to the economy. Rates of innovation in agriculture have been enormous, as I mentioned, and were significantly driven by public investment. There was a centralized approach to investment in the science of the field, but innovation also occurred through agricultural extension stations where you could try things out on the ground. There are a number of proposals to do something like that in energy, which is particularly interesting in areas like conservation.
Biotech and pharma are more dependent on patents than energy is likely to be; but one of the most important things we learned from looking at this sector is the power of collaboration between the public and private sectors. We know that if you can build what the authors of that chapter call an innovative ecosystem, it appears to really accelerate innovation in very productive ways.
What’s striking about energy innovation to date is that a lot of it has been channelled through government labs. And although those labs have a lot of smart and thoughtful people, they’re often remote from industrial centres and not tightly linked to local ecosystems. And so one of the implications of biotech and pharma is that you’d want to tie these labs more to major industrial centres and universities.
A common touch point for all of these industries is the importance of training human capital. Historically very few people have gone into energy. It was viewed as a sideline, as something that hasn’t been exciting or fun or innovative. In biotech and pharma, you see the very important role that federal funding of universities plays in training the next generation of the workforce. We need to do something like that in energy.
IT and telecom are similar to energy in that they’re both infrastructural and large scale, with investments made overwhelmingly by the private sector. Also, IT was an industry kick-started by the Department of Defence. In his chapter on the history of the Internet, Shane Greenstein examines the role of the federal government and the iterative process that DARPA engaged in to develop what would become the Internet. So it’s an example of how major infrastructural investments can be triggered by federal engagement in very productive ways.
The chemicals industry is really the outlier in the set because much of the innovation there was conducted in the private sector. Like energy, however, it’s about building infrastructure. The similarities between a chemical plant and a large power plant are quite strong. Coming back to innovation, what’s striking about chemicals is the role of small, independent engineering firms in transmitting innovation across the industry. So there’s an interesting model here: Could we imagine building a sector like that in energy, where much of the innovation is held by design-build construction firms?
Appropriate public policy can create demand for low-carbon energy. Subsidized clean energy, as the Germans and Californians did with a solar feed-in tariff, can be very helpful. . However, the danger with that kind of policy is that it may not be the most efficient way to achieve innovation. If that’s what is politically possible, it’s much better than nothing. The massive investments by California and parts of Europe have had the effect of halving the price of solar photovoltaics, which is a major achievement. But it’s quite expensive.
Sometimes it seems that there’s a certain sense of hopelessness around climate change and making a major shift to clean energy. Technically, it’s not hopeless at all. We’ve hardly started to invest in energy innovation. Establish a price for carbon, invest money in R&D, manage the money well, and we’ll see enormous change very quickly.
CEO
Clean Fuels Consulting
said: On 22/06/2011
Kazakhstan, the vast central Asia republic kicked off its natural gas vehicle (NGV) program on 30-31st March 2011 with a Clean Cities Transportation Workshop in Almaty, the former capital city in the far eastern side of the country that is regularly choked by severe bouts of air pollution. Almaty ElectroTrans (AET), the city’s main mass transportation company is receiving 200 Chinese-made Zhengzhou Yutong natural gas buses powered by low polluting Cummins Westport natural gas engines. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing a US$35 million loan to help start the natural gas bus program and make general improvements to the city’s transit system. The natural gas bus program is seen as a first step in helping to clean up Almaty’s heavily polluted air quality and was an opening activity for a greater Kazakhastan-wide NGV program. The workshop, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE), the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and coordinated with Clean Fuels Consulting also was designed to introduce a Clean Air Bus & NGV ‘Roadmap’ that the Kazakhstan stakeholders could use as a model strategy to introduce the 200 NG buses to the city and to kick off a larger national NGV program.
Over 150 stakeholders and interested parties representing educational and research institutions, bus companies, energy companies, equipment suppliers, consultants, and the media participated in the two day event. The presentations sparked significant interest as demonstrated by questions and discussion from the audience and a great deal of animated interactions during the coffee breaks and evening reception.
After the opening session, which included introductions from the Mayor, the EBRD, the U.S. Consul General, and DOE, seven sessions presented key aspects of NGV market development: technology and politics: the world view of other countries activities with NGVs (showing market development compared to different types of incentives and policies being used); a view of vehicle and fuelling station technologies; the importance of standards and regulations in the market development of new technologies and fuels; as well as a flavor of the U.S. Clean Cities Program and how that program and process can benefit Almaty by bringing together their civil society, all levels of government, and industry partners. The final parts of the workshop were devoted to the Roadmap developed jointly by the DOE/ANL/Clean Fuels Consulting team. Outside experts provided much of the ‘big picture’ views. BG International and Dresser Wayne, who funded and constructed the CNG station supporting the bus fleet, along with IMW Industries, and Cummins Westport, and Landi-Renzo also were on hand to showcase their technologies.
A principle message for the entire group was the fundamental need to focus on having a safe NGV program based on the development of internationally recognized standards and regulations. Multiple speakers stressed the need for cooperation among stakeholders to create a mutually acceptable vision and action plan as well as engage outside experts to build local knowledge capacity through training and education (about NGVs, transport planning and sensible policy making and enforcement).
The NGV Roadmap is introduced
The Roadmap was based on in-depth interviews with 29 Kazakhstani stakeholders from 14 local and international institutions. Their comments, observations, and views were incorporated into the Roadmap, which presented discreet sections devoted to each of the principal stakeholder groups: the Akimat (municipality) of Almaty; KazTransGas the gas company, and AET, the bus company.
The Roadmap is designed as a model for the Kazakhstani stakeholders to create the structure, substantive actions (including achievable milestones), regulatory processes as well as market conditions needed to first incorporate the initial 200 CNG buses into city operation and then proceed with a plan to expand upon its initial success. Some of the Roadmap strategies, however, also rely on changes and improvements in other Almaty transportation-related activities, such as those being funded by the EBRD and the United Nations Development Program, which is providing an additional US$ 5 million to facilitate the transit system improvements.
Challenges must be addressed
As a start-up program in a country with very little NGV experience there are a number of significant challenges that need to be addressed.
• Political commitment and leadership is essential for success. As with many startup NGV programs, getting the federal and local governments to work together will be a substantial challenge and opportunity to ensure that the initial CNG bus program is implemented safely, efficiently, and sustainably. The federal government should assess all policy options to provide a variety of incentives to support their national and local NGV development. A first priority is to review and adapt the Roadmap so that key government policy makers as well as NGV stakeholders have a clear operating plan into the future.
• National standards and regulations for vehicles, conversions of petrol vehicles to natural gas, workshops and CNG fuelling station construction and operation need to be developed immediately based upon existing international standards and United Nations regulations.
• Fuel infrastructure development and marketing of NGVs must be strategic and focused. The KTG gas company has developed a good start-up plan, but KTG will have to work with the private sector, municipality, and federal government to develop a realistic operating schedule to expand the fuelling infrastructure. Additionally, a strong marketing program to encourage the use of NGVs will be critical to the overall success of the NGV efforts.
• Technology & Operational-Related Capacity-building. Knowledge about CNG technologies and expertise initially will have to come from external sources since there is little indigenous technical capacity. There is an immediate need for training of drivers, mechanics and vehicle inspectors. Beyond that, training and certification will be needed for conversion and vehicle workshops as well as government enforcement for safety compliance for vehicles, fuelling stations and trained personnel. There is willing and able internal capacity (education institutions and NGOs) to be trained and then train-the-trainers to instill a level of safety for the overall NGV program. It will be important to identify a specific government department or private entity or institution ready to financially support these much-needed services and education. Creating internal capacity-building will be important to the overall success and sustainability of the Kazakhstan NGV program.
More information about the workshop, the presentations, and the Roadmap are available at: http://www.ne.anl.gov/workshops/KZ11/en/ .
Dr. Jeffrey M. Seisler is the CEO of Clean Fuels Consulting. This article was adapted from the final report provided to U.S. DOE.
Talgat Abdrakhmanov, Director AET performs the ‘white handkerchief
tailpipe emissions test’ showing how cleaner the exhaust from the NGV bus
is than a diesel bus.
Director of Research
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
said: On 24/06/2011
We are experiencing the endeavor of photovoltaic energy at the world level and especially so in Europe. Germany is the leader, but other countries are rising, for example Italy and France. The mean growth value was about 40% these years and last year is was an incredible value of 117% ! The production of solar power was 27 GW last year, which represents the equivalent of about 20 classical power plants, with 7 GW installed only in Germany. Now Germany has about 2% of electricity from PV. It is considered that between 4 and 12% of European electricity could be provided by PV by 2020. The growth can also come to be very rapid in other countries around the world. This leads to the vision of a realistic scheme for the acceleration of photovoltaic deployment to meet the issues concerning fossil fuel exhaustion and carbon dioxide emissions reductions. The catastrophe of Fukushima will reinforce this tendency. In this context it is also considered that the cost of PV electricity will become competitive with the retail prices of electricity from the grid by 2015 to 2020 in Europe: this “grid parity” is tomorrow and we have to prepare ourselves for this!
Research has a key role in the development of PV energy. Research is acting both to reduce the cost of PV systems and increasing the energy conversion efficiency. A compromise of both is in fact fixing the electricity price at the end. A spectacular development is occurring since a few years back –we are working on this issue in my laboratory- to use thin film solar cells instead of classical wafer based Silicon solar cells. In that case the solar cells are made of extremely thin layers (a few microns instead several hundreds) which are directly deposited on large areas on low cost substrates like glass, metal sheets and increasingly, also more plastics. The materials which are used are silicon again (amorphous or microcrystalline) but more and more new non silicon materials like CuInSe2 an alloy of copper indium and selenium, named CIS or CIGS (with gallium) that we are working on. This alloy reach a record cell efficiency of 20.4% (held in Europe at ZSW in Germany) with module efficiencies from 11 to 15%. We are working on the elaboration of this material by electrodeposition and recently our research findings have led to the set up of a spin-off company, Nexcis. In the research lab we are looking to further increase the efficiency and also decreasing the material use, since indium is rather rare. We aim to reduce the thickness to only 100 nm in the future. Other materials are already produced like cadmium telluride (CdTe). Some others are on the rise, like organic materials. Yes in PV it is possible that in the future, like in electronics, organic solar cells may take an important part. Also other cells are based on hybrid nanostructured materials, which mimics natural photosynthesis, these cells are named Dye Cells, and have been invented by Prof. Graetzel in Switzerland. Last year the thin film technologies had gained a share from 5% in 2005 to 17 %, this value could increase to 30 in 2020. The reason is cost competitiveness. On the other side a lot of research is aiming to increase the efficiencies, and there is a lot to do since the theoretical limit is very high, close to …90 % – this is a fantastic area for research. Nowadays devices based on multijunctions working under concentrated light are reaching 42%! We are working in our institute on this topic too.
From the technological maturity and the performances, the PV sector should go onwards and upwards without many problems. However, even if public opinion is very much in favor of this energy source, there is still very strong opposition coming at a higher level either in the economic or political sectors worldwide, neglecting deliberately the potential of solar PV electricity or claiming that it is too costly for society. They may very well end up blocking the development of renewable energies again. PV still needs a strong public financial support which will decrease as it becomes more and more competitive. Local, national and international policies are needed to support PV growth. It is very important to build a strong European PV industry in relation to innovative research programs, but also in relation with other parts of the world. We have to convince our authorities that photovoltaics is a key answer to the energy and environmental issues that we are currently facing, not for the next century, but for the present and subsequent decades.
MEP, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
European Parliament
said: On 24/06/2011
Efficient energy infrastructure and the EU-wide connectivity is a key to speeding innovations in the energy sector.
The ambitious targets of the European Union in the sphere of reducing greenhouse gas emissions pose many challenges in the energy sector, which is currently one of the biggest polluters. Energy efficiency, renewable energy sources are among the solutions to achieve the environment-friendly power production.
My country Lithuania is not an exception in the search of the green energy. Various parts of the wind turbines, new generation photovoltaic elements, smart meters are being invented and produced in my country, thus contributing to the popularity of the renewable energy in the world. Unfortunately, almost none of this equipment remain in Lithuania. This is not because we live in the North and the sun does not shine – on the contrary, it is calculated that in average, there are more sunny days in Lithuania than in Germany. And this is not because Lithuanians live so well that they do not count their money spent for electricity.
This is because in order to use all the possibilities offered by our science in the energy sector, we must in the first place have ’smart-grids’. Without them, there is no possibility to transfer electricity in all directions, thus enabling more efficient use of reserve power.
Neither efficient use of the wind or solar energy is possible without smart grids. It is especially true when it comes to the isolated areas. For example, it was calculated that if Ireland switched to the wind energy it would create a huge surplus production capacity due to the fact that the ‘conventional’ power plants used for balancing the grid are outdated and in order to respond rapidly to the changing wind speed must be refurbished at extremely high costs.
Nor there are possibilities for single users living in the remote areas to produce electricity at home and to sell surplus to the grid without smart grids.
One could ask – if the only thing we need is smart grids, why can’t we simply upgrade all the EU power lines? The problem is that smart grids are not efficient or even possible until all the Member States are conneced to the sigle grid. And here we come to the problem of the states that remain isolated from the rest of the European Union.
For example, energy system in Lithuania, although heavily modernized during past 20 years, is still connected only with the the former Soviet grid IPS/UPS. This does not allow neither to send the surplus of the electricity produced, nor to buy the needed energy from other EU Member States.
After Lisbon, energy is one of the common EU policies. Therefore EU and its Member countries must act in solidarity with each other perceiving the goals set in the energy sector. And when it is not possible technically to seek these goals, it is not possible at all.
One of the main priorities of the current Lithuanian government in the energy sector is to eliminate isolation and ensure Lithuania is connected to the power lines in the rest of the EU – interconnections with Sweden and Poland are being projected.
Issue of the transmission lines is sensitive not only in Lithuania. There are other states, similarly not fully capable of supporting innovations. For example, when some Member States shut down their NPPs in the near future, there might be a mess in their transmission grids when the power balance and, consequently, network load will change with capacities remaining the same.
The priority of upgrading the transmission lines and eliminating energy islands corresponds to the goals set by the European Council in February this year – The EU needs a fully functioning, interconnected and integrated internal energy market and No EU Member State should remain isolated from the European gas and electricity networks after 2015 or see its energy security jeopardized by lack of the appropriate connections.
Of course, such upgrades are not possible without proper financing. It is important that during the European Council, it was agreed that although the bulk of the important financing costs for infrastructure investments will have to be delivered by the market, some projects that would be justified from a security of supply/solidarity perspective, but are unable to attract enough market-based finance, may require some limited public finance to leverage private funding. It may indeed be unattractive for the market to finance the interconnections in the remote EU region with only several millions of consumers. However, no one denies that these interconnections are vital for the single EU energy policy, and, consequently, for our ambitious goals in promoting innovations.
To sum up, the first steps we must make in order to foster innovations in the energy sector are connecting the remaining energy islands to the rest of the EU and upgrading all of our energy infrastructure. The European Union must act in solidarity and make use of all of its legal, political and financial instruments to become world leader in introducing the innovations in the energy sector.
Professor in Chemical Engineering
University of Nantes
said: On 27/06/2011
A vision for bioenergy from microalgae.
In spite of the interest of photosynthetic microorganisms in various domains, industrial applications remain limited, mainly owing to the difficulty of proposing intensive cultivation systems with high biomass concentration and productivity. Microalgae are sunlight-driven cell factories that convert carbon dioxide to potential biofuels, foods, feeds and high-value bioactives. Different types of renewable biofuels can be produced by microalgae: methane produced by anaerobic digestion of the algal biomass; biodiesel derived from microalgal oil; and biohydrogen. The conversion of solar energy into renewable liquid fuels and other products could become economically competitive with petroleum if research progress continues. The historical emphasis on high-energy compounds as the primary fuel products from microalgae was based on some species ability to accumulate large quantities of these compounds, especially under stressful growth conditions. In spite of dependence of oil yield on the algal strain, the oil contents of microalgae are generally much higher than the other vegetable crops. The oil content depends also on cultivation conditions, nitrate starvation being for example well-known for triggering lipids accumulation, especially triacylglycerols (TAG) interesting for biodiesel production. Production of ethanol from microalgae is obtained from fermentation process. Microalgae are rich in carbohydrates and proteins that can be fermented. Fermentation process involves less intake of energy and the process is much simple in comparison of biodiesel production system. Moreover, CO2 produced as by-product from fermentation process can be recycled as carbon sources for microalgae cultivation, thus reducing the greenhouse gases emissions. Several unicellular green algae have the capacity to produce H2 by using water and sunlight as an energy source. The discovery of H2 photo production by photosynthetic eukaryotic algae is rather ancient, but the productivity of algae-based systems is still limited and needs to be improved. As a result, investigations are being conducted world-wide to optimise the ability of microalgae to produce H2.
The production of 3rd generation biofuels necessitates the development of solar mass cultivation systems, as well as downstream processing (lipids extraction, biorafinery concept). The choice between extensive culture systems, open pounds, and intensive systems, different types of photobioreactors, is still open. The ideal system would be cost-effective with low energy demand, by considering power consumption with respect to the dry biomass weight. The objective, in order to speed up innovation in future bioenergy from microalgae, would be to address the various technological challenges of large-scale production, namely (i) the management of the influents and the production from industrial effluents (CO2 capture from flue gas, exploitation of non-potable water and liquid effluents) (ii) the development of various technological building blocks suitable for the exploitation of microalgae (production, crop, oil extraction) and their implementation in an integrated, controlled and optimized way in real operating conditions, (iii) recycling of culture media and/or biomass waste, and recovery of co-products. The integrated process will then seek to meet the objectives and constraints of mass production of energy by this means, namely a positive energy efficiency, a reduced environmental impact, in particular by using an industrial source of carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-potable water, and a preserved economic returns.
Policy Officer
EUREC Agency
said: On 28/06/2011
The best way to ensure innovation in a technology, is for a market to exist for that technology. If necessary the market must artificially be created, which is often achieved (in the case of renewable energy) by offering subsidies. In most case, these subsidies are production subsidies, paid per unit energy produced. If the return on investment with the subsidy looks attractive, entrepreneurs will take an interest in the sector, and manufacturing and installation of the technology will expand. As new companies enter the market, competition will increase and some companies will try to differentiate themselves by offering the highest performing technology. To do that they need a supply of interesting research results and to get them, they need relationships with universities and research centres and / or an in-house R&D capacity.
But what prompts governments to create artificial markets in the first place? Initially, it is the quality of results from research and small-scale projects in that area, plus the capacity of a market in that area to deliver benefits to society. Interesting research results kick-start an innovation cycle, but production subsidies (a subset of “market-pull” incentives) drive them once the market has been created and is being supplied. The egg came first.
It is probably unavoidable that subsidy schemes are initially set at levels that make the build-out of technology highly profitable to those who try it. This is because these early deployments will be difficult to finance with debt, and are much more likely to be financed with equity. Such subsidy levels might trigger a gold rush, a great burst of interest from investors and entrepreneurs, bringing with them engineers and scientists. Gold rushes are unsustainable in the long run, but can nonetheless draw a lot of attention to a sector and inspire people.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
said: On 29/06/2011
Due to the stiff competition in the areas of technology development and innovation, the need for more effective and efficient ways of research has become no longer easily manageable by the companies. These essentially require two critical elements, namely large funding and highly-qualified people (HQP). Funding will essentially come from government and HQP from university.
In the past, the roles of universities and industrial companies were simple and clear: Universities were doing education and some basic research in a limited fashion. Industrial companies were rather dealing with manufacturing and applied research for product development in a limited fashion. This was reasonably fine for many companies in the 20th century. During the past two decades, the picture has changed drastically due to intensifying technology based race which has compelled countries, especially developed ones, to go beyond conventional and individual based methods of research and development and develop some partnerships with other parties for more effective and efficient technological outcomes. The question was: what could those parties be? As mentioned above, industry needed help for two critical elements: money and skilful people. So, the developed countries, especially USA, Canada, Japan, etc., initiated their partnership programs in order to address the issue. The government is a partner with its financial contribution and policies, and universities are part of this with their faculty members and HQP (postdoctoral research fellows, research associates, research scientists, graduate students, research assistants, researchers, etc.). This has made the partnership with three key players as university, government and industry. The related issues will now be discussed in this paper with several key issues, programs, methods and options.
After highlighting the background about research and innovation and the respective parties, such as university, government and industry, one can indicate that there are 3E issues such as Energy, Environment and Economy to deal with if we want to achieve a more sustainable future. I will make the focus on energy issues as a reply to the question of how we can speed up innovation in energy technology to ensure a secure and sustainable future.
Energy shaped the past, is shaping the present and will shape the future due to the fact that it is directly related to environment, economy, sustainability and politics. In order to overcome current local and global issues and achieve a secure and sustainable future, I define six main pillars (goals) as follows:
1) better efficiency
2) better cost effectiveness
3) better resources use
4) better design and analysis
5) better energy security
6) better environment
The research and innovation activities need to address these either fully or partially, depending on the systems and applications. Each of these pillars represents a challenge, as they require a series of solutions. Some key solutions are, in this regard, listed as follows:
- renewable energy
- hydrogen
- efficient energy use/energy conservation
- system integration and hybridization
- cleaner technologies for fossil fuels
- biofuels
- nuclear power (with a question mark) with a higher safety band
- changing life style and habits
- education and training, including media awareness
- etc.
Of course, some may extend these even further, depending on the local energy security, environment and sustainability opportunities/challenges. Of course, if one does not choose right energy policies and strategies for implementation, the above listed solutions may not be successful. It is then equally important to support these with right ones as they require collective efforts from government, universities and industry. Its prerequisite becomes public and public acceptance. This needs to be diligently treated by politicians.
As mentioned above, researchers need to address the six goals in their research and innovation, in partnership with government agencies and industries. This will help achieve sustainable development and develop new technologies which hold the promise of benefiting people in all countries by providing more jobs, income, and food, and better living conditions. But as new technology disseminates through countries, particularly developing ones, its effectiveness in bringing about change for the better depends on how it is applied within existing cultural and social systems, and if the population accepts the new concepts.
MEP, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
European Parliament
said: On 29/06/2011
A fast energy transition is necessary from an environmental, economic and geopolitical point of view. We should be more efficient in our energy use and make more use of renewable energy. That means that Europe must create a favourable investment climate and stimulate innovation.
Without sufficient knowledge resources, we shall be no match for the emerging economies that are certainly investing heavily in that area. The EU must therefore supplement Member States’ efforts to place innovation and research on the agenda and back them up with serious financial resources. Innovation is the distinctive element in global competition.
In order to speed up innovation in energy technologies Europe needs predictable and stable policies. Stop-and-go approaches and sudden cuts in subsidies have proven to be disastrous for research and development. There are several examples of European companies that developed innovative solutions, but could not survive in the European investment climate. Some of these companies are brought to China, where they now put their products on the market. Europe needs policies, such as the German feed-in tariff system, that provide the necessary long term securities.
An efficient European energy market is also of paramount importance. A single EU gas and electricity market with fair competition will contribute to lower prices and innovation. Europe needs better implementation of current legislation and enhanced cooperation. Given the complexity of national structures and regulations this will be a challenging task.
According to the latest European Commission calculations, the transition to sustainable energy will cost about 1000 billion between now and 2020. This will have to come primarily from private investment, but must be facilitated and encouraged by public expenditure. However, at this moment 1% of global GDP is spent on fossil-fuel subsidies. In order to speed up the transition towards sustainable energy Europe will have to eliminate these perverse stimuli and invest heavily in research, new technology and infrastructure.