Study on impacts of EU actions supporting the development of renewable energy

technologies

Solar Thermal R&D Study FindingsPresented on 24/09/2018 in Brussels

Historical R&D funding

Framework programme

Solar thermal Solar thermal and other RES

EU funding

(M EUR)

Number of

projects

EU funding

(M EUR)

Number of

projects

FP5 57 47 2 4

FP6 22 22 8 2

FP7 208 53 23 9

H2020 - up to mid-March 2018 113 46 6 1

Total EU funding 400 168 38 16

EU FP R&D funding

• Funding increased considerably from FP7 onwards

Source: Cordis, 2018

Funding converted to 2016 Euros)

Comparison to other sectors

• Solar thermal received 11% of total €3.6 billion

• Dip in FP6 (4%), peak in FP7 (13%)

Source: Cordis, 2018

H2020 not for full funding period

Funding per sub-technology

• Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) received most funding

• Increased funding for solar process heating and PV-thermal hybrids in FP7 / H2020

Source: Cordis, 2018

Funding at MS level

• Stable Member State (MS) R&D funding for solar heating

• Increased MS funding for CSP from 2001 onwards

• Highest R&D budgets in Italy, Germany and Spain

• 13% of MS R&D budgets for RES to solar thermal

Source: IEA/OECD, 2018Note: 2010 & 2015 decrease partly

due to missing data for Italy

International comparison

• Combined EU FP and MS funding at world leading level

EU: MS + EU FPs

No data available for ChinaSource: OECD/IEA (2018

Research effectiveness

Patents

• EU patent registrations losing ground to strong growth from China

• No correlation between R&D funding and patent applications

• In line with other RES assessments – patents are not a common output of publicly funded R&D projects

Source: IRENA INSPIRE (2017)

Publications (1/2)

• Strong growth in solar thermal publications by EU authors

• EU funded projects generated a large number of publications and supported top publishing organisations

Source: Web of Science (2018)

Publications (2/2)

• EU successful in sustaining academic leadership in solar thermal technologies

Source: Web of Science (2018)

Other outputs of R&D funding

• EU FP funding contributes to much more than patents and publications

• Key impacts include technology advances, increased knowledge transfer and collaboration, and market access / market formation

Source: Questionnaire conducted

as part of the study

Key impacts of EU Framework Programme funding

Concentrated Solar Power

Scale-up and market creation

• EU FP funding for demonstration projects (e.g. PS10, Andasol and SOLAR TRES) contributed to market uptake of CSP in the 2000s

• More recent demonstration projects outside EU support market formation and market access outside of the EU

Source: Eurostat

Technology improvements

• EU funding enabled technology improvements and cost reductions• e.g. in heat transfer fluids, thermal energy storage, water

consumption management, and hybrid CSP plant solutions

• EU funding vital for continuity of research and sustained international competitiveness of EU industry

Collaboration and knowledge transfer

• EU funded projects such as ECOSTAR (FP6) and STAGE-STE (FP7) brought solar thermal stakeholders together

• Industry involvement in EU funded projects fostered public/private knowledge development

Key impacts of EU Framework Programme funding

Solar heating and cooling

Building integrated solar thermal

• Development of building-integrated solar thermal technologies is supported through various projects

• Examples include EINSTEIN, CHESS-SETUP and FLUIDGLASS

Solar district heating

• EU supported advancing the solar district heating market (SDHp2m, SDHplus and SDHtake-off)

• Combined with the efforts of leading Member States (e.g. Denmark) global leadership has been achieved in solar district heating

Industrial applications

• More recently, EU FPs supported the development of the solar industrial process heat market through funding of demonstration projects (e.g. SOLARBREW)

• Alignment of research activities for solar process heat is supported through the INSHIP project

Industrial leadership

• Competitive EU solar heating and cooling sector

Source: Based on Comext (2018), Lako, P (2008), Eurostat (2018), Wind, I

(2009), and Jha, V (2009)

Conclusions

• The EU has world leading R&D budgets for solar thermal energy and has been successful in establishing and maintaining a leading academic position

• EU FP funding played an important role in the development and market uptake of CSP and has been vital for continuity of research in recent years. Combined with the efforts of Spain, this has facilitated the development of a globally leading EU industry

• EU FP funding contributed to developing building-integrated solar heating, solar district heating and solar process heating for industry. Combined with the efforts of key Member States such as Denmark, this has contributed to a competitive EU solar heating industry