EMINENT workshop on assessment of Early Stage Technologies -
Riga Technical University, Latvia
Summary
Initiated by leading European research institutions, the aim of the EMINENT OPET Network is to identify emerging energy technologies at an early stage of development and to recommend measures that may reduce the lead-time from science and research to the market place. The OPET network is supported by DG-TREN of the European Commission.
As a participant within the EMINENT network, Riga Technical University and TNO have together organised a 2-day workshop in Riga, Latvia on systematic identification of potential market opportunities of EST's. It provided the participants, originating from companies, universities and government organisations with tools and methodologies for identifying market opportunities for individual technologies.
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| End-user area | Industry Planning issues Sustainable communities Transport and mobility |
| Target audience | Decision makers Local and regional authorities Utilities Other: R&D organisations |
| Technical scope | Appliances |
Context
The lead-time for development of a new energy technology, from first idea to commercial application can take many years. This can be caused by several factors, e.g. the developer of a new innovation may not be aware of the most attractive type of application and geographical location. It may also be that potential investors are not aware of the existence of this innovation at all. It is believed that better knowledge of the market attractiveness of a currently immature energy technology will lead to more efficient allocation of research money on one hand, and shorter lead times to implementation on the other.
EMINENT has been established as a new node within the existing European OPET network to accelerate implementation of promising Early Stage Technologies (EST's) for energy conversion, storage and transportation. This is done through the identification of recent technological innovations on energy and environment and the dissemination of such key information in various ways to the market. An important vehicle is the organisation of assessment workshops and tool training sessions, such as the one described in this GP.
The project duration is 30 months (from April 2003 – Sept 2005).
Objectives
The EST assessment workshop and tool training sessions were organised by the EMINENT project partners in Riga to draw attention to a new method that will become available for systematic storage, retrieval and analysis of key information on a broad range of EST's.
The first day of the event was a workshop, aimed at technology developers, investors, government organisations and manufacturing industries in order to explain the general principles of assessing the performance of Early Stage Technologies under given market conditions. The second day was a tool training workshop that should help potential users of the tool to acquire hands-on experience.
Process
As part of its work programme, EMINENT produces and demonstrates a systematic methodology that enables potential investors as well as developers of new technologies to identify current and future market opportunities throughout Europe. The score of a new technology in terms of potential market volume, environmental and financial performance can be essential when deciding how to proceed with the further development of technologies that are presently immature.
EMINENT absorbs data on the performance of EST's both directly from R&D organisations as well as that of DG Research supported initiatives (shared cost RTD projects, Marie Curie fellowships, Thematic Networks, etc.). By evaluating these EST's on their potential merits and fields of application before offering them to the OPET network, EMINENT will lead to increased awareness and in reduced lead-time in the transfer of results from pure research to viable social or industrial solutions. The results will also provide insight how to optimally arrange information flow from R&D projects to market implementation.
An assessment tool, made available through the internet in August 2004, enables users of the tool (government organisations, R&D organisations, investors, manufacturing industry, etc) to get an overview of new energy technologies with their current status, technical performance and financial aspects. The assessment tool also enables users to quickly evaluate the potential impact of a technology for application in a given sector of society under given national conditions.
The main results of the EMINENT project are made available through EST assessment workshops, EST assessment tool training sessions, EST assessment reports, CD-ROM's and the project website. The EST assessment workshop and tool training seminar organised by RTU and TNO in Riga, Latvia, served to introduce a methodology for the assessment of EST's to a number of organisations and individuals.
Actions
- Seminar
- Market analysis
- Webpage
- Database
- Other: Assessment tool
Financial resources and partners
The EMINENT network has a budget of approx. 1,4 M€ over a period of 30 months. 75% of the budget is comprised of a subsidy received from the European Commission, the remaining 25% comes from internal funding of the 10 partner organisations or other sources.
The EST assessment workshop was organised with joint efforts of Riga Technical University (Latvia), SINTEF (Norway) and TNO (Netherlands) as part of the EMINENT project and has a budget of approx. 3000 €, excluding travel expenses of partner organizations and other workshop participants.
Results
The first thematic workshop of EMINENT was held on March 9, 2004 at Riga Technical University in Riga, Latvia. In addition to the project partners, the audience comprised 40 international delegates from universities, policy makers and industries. The workshop served to explain the general principles of assessing Early Stage Technologies and how this can be used to increase the effectiveness of R&D. It was accompanied by a number of examples of EST's, presented by the EMINENT project partners.
Version 1.0 of the EST assessment tool has been demonstrated and proved to work satisfactory at a tool training workshop, held at the same location on March 9, 2004. The training workshop was attended by approximately 50 participants, of which 10 from the project consortium and the remainder from Latvian universities, industry and government organizations. The workshop not only served the participants by the performance of training exercises, it proved also very valuable for the developers of the software tool as it showed clearly how new users interpret the user interface and perceive certain functionalities. Several suggestions for further improvement were received, these were mainly related to the user interface and will be implemented in a next software version that will be made available as an internet based tool.
As a result of the workshop and seminar, a number of students at RTU and other universities have started to use the tool to perform assessments of a number of EST's, e.g. in the framework of their MSc theses.
Lessons learned and replication potential
The conclusions from the implementation of the workshop in Riga, Latvia are:
Contact for more information
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Printed reports or other literature available
Eminent Assessment Tool for Identification of Markets for Early Stage Energy Technologies - Software Manual and Training Cases, TNO-MEP, 2004 (free of charge).
Other contacts
TNO-MEP - Dept of Energy Systems
Ir. J.P. Jansen
Postbus 342
7300 AH Apeldoorn
The Netherlands
+31 55-5493039
J.P.Jansen@mep.tno.nl
SINTEF Energiforskning AS - Dept. of Thermal Energy
PhD Jens Hetland
Kolbjorn Hejesvei 1A
NO-7465 Trondheim
Norway
+47 73 597764
jens.hetland@energy.sintef.no
UMIST - Centre for Process Integration
Dr. Jiri Klemes
PO Box 88
M60 1QD Manchester
UK
+44-161-200 4389
Jiri.Klemes@umist.ac.uk
IST - Instituto Superior Técnico - Dep. of Mechanical Engineering
Ana Pipio
Av. Rovisco Pais
Pav. Mecanica I, 2
1049 001 Lisboa
Portugal
tel +351 218 419 446
anapipio@ist.utl.pt
Forschungszentrum Julich
Gillian Glaze
Leo-Brandt-Strasse
52425 Jülich
Germany
+49-2461 61-5928
g.glaze@fz-juelich.de
VTT-Processes
M. Sc. Pirkko Vesterinen
PO Box 1603
FIN-40101 Jyväskylä
Finland
+358 14 672 715
pirkko.vesterinen@vtt.fi
Riga Technical University, Faculty of Power and Electrical Engineering
Prof Dagnija Blumberga
Kronvalda Boulevard 1
LV 1010 Riga
Latvia
+371-7089923
dagnija@btv.lv
Institute of Process and Environmental Engineering
Prof Petr Stehlík
Technická 2
616 69 Brno
Czech Rep
+42-05-41142373
stehlik@upei.fme.vutbr.cz
Risoe National Laboratory, Wind Energy Department
Egon T.D. Bjerregaard
PO Box 49
4000 Roskilde
Denmark
+45 4677 5086
egon.bjerregaard@risoe.dk
Moscow State University, Chemistry Faculty, Dept. of Chemical Enzymology
Prof Sergey V. Kalyuzhnyi
Leninskiye Gory 1-11
119992 Moscow
Russian Fed
+7(095) 939-50-83
svk@enz.chem.msu.ru