In 2007, the Energy Research Partnership conducted a review of the innovation chain for 12 key energy technology areas. It is technologies in these areas that are expected to transform the UK’s energy landscape, making dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions whilst maintaining secure access to competitive sources of energy.

The supporting agencies are identified for each area giving a clear picture of the sources of public funding that help move technologies from R&D through demonstration to final deployment. Gaps and barriers in the innovation chain are also highlighted and specific recommendations made to overcome these.The ERP is now looking in detail at the development needs in 100+ more specific technologies and assessing each against a set of criteria to help prioritise RDD&D investment.

In bringing this all together the ERP hope to highlight its recommendations to ensure that the UK will have the technologies available to meet the daunting challenge set by climate change.

These are best summarised as:

• Development of a strategic vision for each technology area
• Better co-ordination, with some consolidation, of support along the innovation chain
• R&D to be strengthened and more strongly focussed on market need
• Much stronger joint public/private support for demonstration and early deployment

Next steps

This project was followed up with an in depth analysis of the 12 key technology families and their progress along with innovation pathway. Further details of the project can be found on the Energy Technologies Matrix project page.