Page 21 - European Energy Innovation magazine - autumn 2022 edition

Autumn 2022 European Energy Innovation
ENERGY RESEARCH 21

analysis of measures proposed under
the REPowerEU strategy to highlight Creating excellent research knowledge for designing new technologies
its perceived shortfalls and propose has been the historical role of EERA, generating a continuous flow of
complementary actions to secure technological and social innovations for reaching the EU’s long-term
and, where possible, bolster its objectives of climate neutrality by 2050.
expected impact.
The analysis was carried out under of new technologies that will help workforce required downstream the
the conceptual and methodological support the decarbonisation effort supply chain (planning, sourcing,
framework of the EERA White Paper further down to climate neutrality financing, installing, operating,
on the Clean Energy Transition. at a much faster pace. At the same maintaining, etc.) will equally
Once more, it highlighted the very time, reducing the EU’s dependency constitute a major limitation to any
intricate and intertwined nature of on critical minerals, technologies significant deployment acceleration.
the energy transition that can only and components that need to be
be addressed from a fundamentally sourced offshore is core to building Recognising this double pressure
holistic, systemic, and cross-sectoral its strategic autonomy. on EU Research and Innovation
perspective. capabilities, the European Energy
But first and foremost, REPowerEU Research Alliance recognises and
REPowerEU or REEnergiseEU? mandates an unprecedented endorses its role in accelerating
A fundamental observation of EERA’s acceleration of the short-term the implementation of existing
work resides in that, although it deployment of a range of available knowledge and scaling up already
is commonly accepted that the low-carbon technologies. Sensibly validated solutions. EERA will
decarbonisation of our economy will accelerating their deployment bolster such a contribution in
vastly rely on higher electrification rate remains conditioned by the generating implementation
supported by clean power generation, numerous bottlenecks of their global knowledge by studying and advising
electricity still only represents supply chains, broken under the on the conditions for faster and
less than 25% of the final energy combined effect of the pandemic, more efficient implementation of
consumption in Europe. The EERA the commodity price crisis, and the existing knowledge and solutions.
Manifesto highlights the enormous increasing geopolitical tensions. All of Fig. 1 illustrates this dual role of
importance of scrutinising heating the above is vastly out of the control research showing how the research
and cooling, which still represents of EU institutions and governments. knowledge and implementation
about 50% of the EU’s total energy At the EU bloc scale alone, the knowledge loops work and interact
demand. This is even more true availability of the range of skilled in a complementary way.
considering the likely prolonged
scarcity of gas, as about 35% of gas
demand is used for space heating
and 23% for industrial applications.

Managing compressed time
horizons: designing new
technologies earlier, deploying
existing technologies faster
Radically transforming the energy
system in just a few years, which
usually deals with cycle times of
several decades, can only remain a
vastly underestimated challenge.

It is commonly accepted that half
of carbon abatements to occur
after 2030 will have to be provided
by technologies that are not yet on
the market today. Therefore, the Fig. 1 - Research knowledge and implementation knowleedge feedback loops
EU must speed up its research and
innovation output to deliver the range

www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu