Strategic Energy Technology Plan conference 2010

European Industrial Initiatives

 

The European Industrial Initiatives are public-private partnerships which bring together researchers and the industry. The goal is to target sectors for which working together at EU level offers the most added value.

• The European wind initiative has to accelerate the reduction of costs, increasingly move offshore and resolve the associated grid integration issues.
• The solar Europe initiative including photovoltaics and concentrated solar power has to help these technologies become more competitive and gain mass market appeal.
• The European electricity grid initiative has to respond to three interrelated challenges – creating a real internal market; integrating a massive increase of intermittent energy sources; and managing complex interactions between suppliers and customers.
• The sustainable bio-energy Europe initiative has to bring the most promising technologies to commercial maturity in order to permit large-scale, sustainable production of advanced biofuels and highly efficient combined heat and power from biomass.
• The European CO2 capture, transport and storage initiative has to allow a wide commercialisation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies.
• The sustainable nuclear fission initiative has to move towards long-term sustainability with a new generation of reactor type that improves safety measures, optimise the use of fuel and reduce the volume of radioactive waste – the Generation-IV reactor. The reactor will be designed to maximise inherent safety, increase efficiency, produce less radioactive waste and minimise proliferation risks.

 

Other priorities

• The Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) on fuel cells and hydrogen was established for 2008-2013 with a budget of 470 M€ of Community funding to be at least matched by industry. The initiative will accelerate the development and deployment of cost-competitive European hydrogen and fuel cell based energy systems and component technologies for applications in transport, stationary and portable power.
• The Smart Cities initiative has the objective to create the conditions to trigger the mass market take-up of energy efficiency technologies since energy efficiency is the simplest and cheapest alternative to reduce CO2 and improve energy security. In transport, buildings and industry, available technology opportunities must be turned into business opportunities. The programme envisages 25 to 30 smart cities which will be the starting points from which small networks, a new generation of buildings and alternative transport means will develop into European wide realities.
• Additional investment should support the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) which will launch and implement joint programmes addressing the key challenges of the SET-Plan with concrete technological objectives.