res spending en

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European research spending

for renewable energy sources

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, GLOBAL CHANGE AND ECOSYSTEMS

PROJECT

REPORT

EUR

21346

15

KI-NA-21346-EN-C

This publication aims to give a clear picture of the Research, Technological Development and

Demonstration (RTD&D) spending in the field of renewables in Europe. Based on a questionnaire

methodology, it provides data on the public and private sectors, on the national and EU spending and

on the number of personnel involved in renewable energy RTD&D. This report also highlights issues

such as the ratio between renewable research spending and GDP and the correlations between the

public and the private spending for each Member State.


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EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Directorate-General for Research

Directorate J Energy

Unit J.3 New and renewable energy sources

Contact: Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero

European Commission

Office CDMA 5/142

B-1049 Brussels

Tel. (32-2) 29-62811

Fax (32-2) 29-94991

E-mail: [email protected]

Interested in European research?

RTD info is our quarterly magazine keeping you in touch with main developments (results, programmes, events, etc.).

It is available in English, French and German. A free sample copy or free subscription can be obtained from:

European Commission


Information and Communication Unit

B-1049 Brussels

Fax (32-2) 29-58220

E-mail: [email protected]

Internet: http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/rtdinfo/index_en.html

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Sustainable Energy Systems

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

EUR 213462004

European research spendingfor renewable energy sources


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LEGAL NOTICE:

Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be

made of the following information.

The views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the

European Commission.

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It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int).

Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2004

European Communities, 2004

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER

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ISBN 92-894-8286-9

Printed in Luxembourg


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

3

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................5

METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................................7

BACKGROUND .............................................................................................................................6

DATA COLLECTION .......................................................................................................................9

EVALUATION OF DATA CONSISTENCY..........................................................................................15

EVIDENCE FROM DATA COLLECTED AND ELABORATION OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ................17

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS......................................................................................21

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................23

Sector specific distribution of RTD&D budget........................................................................19

WEB SITES .................................................................................................................................24

Correlation between governmental and private spending .......................................................20

CONTACT PERSONS ....................................................................................................................25


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Introduction

Very little information is available on research, technological development and demonstration

(RTD&D) spending in the specific field of renewable energy sources (RES) in Europe. There were

three objectives of this Specific Support Action funded by the European Union (EU):

to gain a clear picture of the public and private research spending in the field of renewables;

to arrive at an approximate distribution between Member States and EU research spending;

to evaluate each Member States share of the research spending in the last decade.

The most important results from this study are that:

more than half of the renewable energy research is done by the public sector;

one quarter of the public spending comes directly from the EU budget;

one third of the EU-15 Government research spending and half of the personnel

working on research for renewables are from Germany. Denmark and The

Netherlands have the highest ratio of research spending on renewables in comparison

to their GDP.

The results of this study may help to define a European research policy in the field of renewables

thus contributing to the creation and implementation of the European Research Area. Also, they can

be used in developing a better framework for introduction of renewables in the European energy

system. This is an important goal of the EU as underlined in the renewable electricity directive

2001/77/EC.

Taking into consideration three major objectives of the EU, i.e. ensuring a better security of energy

supply, considerably increasing the production of green electricity and reducing greenhouse gas

emissions, it seems necessary to increase the efforts dedicated to research spending on renewables

both at the national and European levels and to better coordinate and integrate these efforts in

Europe.

Three research teams were involved in the REDS (Research & Development Spending: a survey of

RTD&D spending on renewable energy in the EU countries) project: Arturo Lorenzoni, the

Coordinator), Samuele Larzeni, Nicoletta Marigo and Apollonia Miola from Universit

Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (IEFE) in Italy, Mario Ragwitz from Fraunhofer Institute Systems and

Innovation Research (FhG ISI) in Germany and Emiel Hanekamp and Cees Van Halen from

PriceWaterhouseCoopers in The Netherlands. The authors were assisted by experts in the different

EU Member States.

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Background

Energy RD&D activity in the EU has been the object of two European projects, the JOULE-

SENSER project (Olthof, 1998) and its follow-up the JOULE-PSI (Bruel, 2000), as well as ofinternational studies like the one conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Energy

Trends, 2002). Although these studies do not focus specifically on renewable energy sources (RES),

they were, together with the Eurostat database which also contains useful data, briefly reviewed and

their relevance to the REDS project assessed. At present the most important international source for

RES RD&D spending is the IEA database on energy RD&D budgets of OECD countries.

The primary objective of REDS was to conduct an analytical survey of RD&D expenditure for

renewable energy sources (RES) in the EU and the 15 Member States. To reach this goal a

comprehensive set of data, spanning from 1993 to 2001, was collected through a questionnaire

specifically designed by the projects partners and completed by national experts for each EUcountry. The surveys methodological approach and its content were widely discussed between the

core team partners. All the data on RES RD&D expenditure have been collected and stored in a

database that is available on the REDS website: www.eu.fraunhofer.de/reds.

Some comments on the availability of data both from private and government sources are

summarised in Table 1. For many countries part of data, often private funds or funds paid by local

governmental bodies, are not monitored and thus could not be included in the database. As a

consequence, in spite of the effort made in the project work to enhance the quality of data, the REDS

database is still incomplete.

Table 1. Considerations about international available data on RTD&D for RES

Government Expenditures Recent data could only be found in the IEAdatabase. However, attention should be paid tothe comments and values given by the REDSexperts, since it seems that for some countries,not all IEA data were complete due to the lack ofpart of the funds given, especially from local

governmental institutions.

Private Expenditures Some international figures on private R&Dexpenditures were available only from PNNL-Battelle project and SENSER. Unfortunately they

were very incomplete and cover only few EUcountries and years. However, this data was stilluseful to make a comparison with data collected

in REDS.

Personnel None of the existing databases containsdisaggregated figures on the personnel involvedin RTD&D.

Even if data were missing in the previous works, the cited projects and the IEA database were used

in REDS for general comparison purposes. The existent literature provided also limited

methodological indications upon which the REDS project could ground itself.

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Methodology

The first activity of the project was to set out the methodology for data collection and to establish the

guidelines for the questionnaire design. Critical actions consisted in:

- setting the boundaries of the study in terms of data to be collected and to be excluded;

- specifying the details and the criteria for acquiring the data: the coherence of collected data is

crucial when so many sources of information is used;

- providing definitions to obtain reliable and comparable statistics.

Considering the limited time available (1 year) and the scale of the effort (collecting RD&D

expenditures for renewable energy sources for the 15 Member States) it was essential to adopt a

pragmatic approach that would allow to collect good quality data and to elaborate a convincing

methodology. This consisted in designing a concentric circle framework within which to set the

priorities for data collection.

Figure 1. REDS boundaries and priorities

Government national

RD&D

expenditure for RES

Gov. regional

RD&D

expend. for RES

Other sectors of

the economy

RD&D expend.

for RES

Gov. personnel

involved in

RD&D for

RES

Efficiency

expenditure

indicators

Government national

RD&D

expenditure for RES

Gov. regional

RD&D

expend. for RES

Other sectors of

the economy

RD&D expend.

for RES

Gov. personnel

involved in

RD&D for

RES

Efficiency

expenditure

indicators

In the inner circle were located the data that must be gathered to fulfil the project objectives. These

pertained to government RD&D expenditure for RES at the national level only. The second and the

third outer circles included data (such as government RD&D expenditure at the local level and

expenditure made by private companies), that are in general more scattered and difficult to obtain

than the previous ones. It was decided that these data should also be collected despite being lesscritical to achieve the project objectives and probably less accurate and reliable than the ones

pertaining to public RD&D expenditure at the national level. The most outer circles contained data

(such as personnel involved in RD&D and efficiency expenditure indicators) that could be useful to

complete the picture but, if not collected, were not going to undermine the project goals.

In order to obtain reliable and comparable data, REDS paid a particular attention to definitions. The

OECD Frascati Manual (OECD, 2002) was used as a reference for RD&D and personnel definitions.

This choice was undertaken because the methodology indicated by the Manual represents a well-

consolidated praxis and allows for comparison between countries. The definition for the different

RES was instead elaborated by taking into account both the one put forth in the Directive

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2001/77/EC and by the IEA (IEA Energy Statistics, 2004), but also those adopted by the 15 Member

States. This approach was necessary, in the presence of multiple definitions, to harmonise all the

existent discrepancies that could lead to inconsistency in data collections.

To assess the RD&D expenditure for RES in the different member states it was necessary to have a

direct insight into the respective national markets. For this reason the projects team worked together

with experts appropriately selected in the different European countries. It was decided to exploit,

where possible, personal contacts within academic or other European institutions (Table 2 provides a

list of the experts who completed the questionnaire). This was done first of all to exert a greater

control on the data to be collected by allowing a continuous exchange of information between the

REDS project partners and the experts, but it was also done for practical reasons to optimise the use

of limited amount of resources and time.

Some recommendations can be derived from REDS in relation to the methodology for RD&D datacollection:

- a pragmatic approach is crucial when a lot of data should be collected across many different

countries and when the time and the financial resources available are limited;

- importance of networks for effective results. The choice of exploiting research and scientific

contacts to provide the necessary data has proven to be a winning one.

- importance of a trial and error approach. The elaboration of a sound and straightforward

methodology was the result of a lengthy process that involved all the project partners. This

approach proved to be very effective in enhancing clarity and simplicity.

Table 2. REDS experts who filled the country questionnaires and corresponding IEA contacts

Country REDS experts IEA contacts

Name and email Institute

Austria Gerhard [email protected]

IFF (Institut fur interdisziplinareForschung und Fortbildung)

ABARE

Belgium Mario Ragwitz

[email protected]

FhG-ISI (Fraunhofer Institute forSystems and Innovation Research)

Ministry of EconomicAffairs

Denmark Peter Helby

[email protected]

Lund University Danish Energy Agencyand Ministry ofEnvironment and Energy

Finland Eija Alakangas

[email protected]

VTT Energy Department,Ministry of Trade andIndustry

France Boris Bailly

[email protected]

Service Economie-Prospective Ministre de l'conomie,des finances et del'industrie, DGEMP

Germany Mario Ragwitz

[email protected]

FhG-ISI (Fraunhofer Institute forSystems and Innovation Research)

Federal Ministry ofEconomics andTechnology

Greece Calliope [email protected]

CRES Ministry of Industry,Energy & Technology

Ireland Therese Murphy

[email protected]

Sustainable Energy Ireland International & SustainableEnergy Division, Dpt. ofPublic Ent. and Sust.Energy Division

Italy Samuele Larzeni

[email protected]

IEFE (Istituto di Economia e Politicadell'Energia e dell'Ambiente,Universit Commerciale L. Bocconi)

Ministero delle AttivitProduttive

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Luxembourg Emiel [email protected]

HE Environmental & InnovationConsultancy (NL)

Portugal Alvaro Martins

[email protected]

CEEETA (Centro de Estudos emEconomia da Energia dosTransportese do Ambiente)

Departimento dePlaneamento eEstatistidca, DG Energia

TheNetherlands

Esther [email protected]

PricewaterhouseCoopers (NL) Ministry of EconomicAffairs

Spain Julio Montes Ponce de [email protected]

Universidad Pontificia Comillas Ministerio de Industria yEnergia

Sweden Peter [email protected]

Lund University Swedish National EnergyAdministration

UnitedKingdom

Robert [email protected]

Imperial College -ICCEPTDepartment of Environmental S&T

Department of Trade andIndustry

Data collection

The projects core activity was the data collection. This phase resulted to be rather difficult and timeconsuming, in part for the lack of previous work in this field and in part for the non-availability ofsome of the data under investigation.Although the International Energy Agency (IEA) RD&D database was used as benchmark, a great

care was taken in designing the questionnaire. This was designed to allow for harmonised datacollection and to ease the task of transferring and storing the information obtained in an ad hoccreated database.

Figures that have been considered of interest for the project reflect the priorities previously describedin the concentric circle approach and include: government expenditures at both the national and

the regional level, personnel involved in RD&D for RES and some data useful to calculate efficiencyexpenditure indicators to analyse the effectiveness of the financial support devoted to RD&D forRES. The structure of financing has also been investigated in order to understand the flows of

expenditure and to avoid the double counting of funds redistributed by public institutions to RD&Dperformers.It was decided to customise the questionnaire for each Country in order to take into account the

funds given by local administrations.Figure 2 shows the lay out of the final questionnaire, with comments to guide the respondents.Where official information was not available, experts were asked to give their own estimates on the

basis of information available. In order to appreciate the reliability of these figures, a confidenceindicator ranging from 0 (absolutely unreliable) to 10 (maximum reliability of data) had toaccompany the data. Furthermore it was also asked to integrate the data with comments considered

useful by the respondents for a better understanding of the data provided. The confidence indicatorand the comments were precious in the following phase of data interpretation.

The data collection process was carried out in strict contact with national partners in each EU

member state. A brief guideline for approaching the data collection was distributed to the expertsand some preliminary sources of information were also suggested.

The outcome of the process is a database where data coming from the fifteen competedquestionnaires were merged. Its structure mirrors that of the questionnaire:- structure and budget of financing;

- program funding and expenditures;

- government expenditures (national and regional level);

- government personnel in full time equivalent and headcount;

- RD&D expenditures and personnel of other sectors of economy;

- data for performance indicators.

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Figure 2 Example of questionnaire (France) - part of the sheet "Government Expenditures Regions (Lorraine, etc.)"; comments are not shown.

GOV FranceSector of economy: Government

Administrative level: NUTS 2

It considers the SUM OF

expenditures at the LEVEL

NUTS 2 of the Government Sector,

that is what the entities in level

NUTS 2 spend, all together, for the

technologies listed below.

2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992

RD&D expenditures for RES

Millions, National Currencies

Biomass

Geothermal

Hydro

Biogas, Landfill and sewage gas

Solar

Photovoltaics

Solar thermal

Other SolarTide energy

Wave energyWindOther

need to know

nice to know

Total R&D expenditures for RES of entities of level NUTS 2

% budget

Budget assigned by this administrative level to R&D for RES compared with

the total spending in Government Sector (all the levels national and NUTS

2). This percentage will give how much the level NUTS 2 weights on the

governmental financing.

To know what the LEVEL NUTS 2

corresponds in your Country click on the

button here below:

Instructions

Levels NUTS

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The data available in the database are in national currency but conversions in Euro 2002 are alsoprovided.The milestones for the data collection can be summarised as follows:

- implementation of clear questionnaires;

- personal contacts in each country;- close collaboration and assistance to national collaborators;

- continue verification of the process.

Some data from the REDS database are provided in the tables below.

Table 3. Government Expenditures for RTD&D for RES (Million Euro 2002)

Country 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993

AT - Austria 8.0 6.7 9.7 10.3 7.9 6.5 - - -

BE - Belgium 12.4 6.6 3.1 1.0 2.2 2.0 4.5 3.7 3.4

DE - Germany 113.8 130.8 144.5 158.2 146.7 158.4 130.8 - -

DK - Denmark 25.9 - - - - - - - -

EL - Greece 2.6 2.0 2.2 2.5 3.3 3.3 6.0 3.4 3.0

ES - Spain 25.4 18.4 17.0 22.0 16.0 - - - -

FI - Finland 13.1 13.5 - - - - - - -

FR - France 18.3 13.5 13.0 4.0 3.0 4.8 5.1 5.2 5.5

IE - Ireland 0.3 0.8 - - - - - - -

IT - Italy 25.8 30.0 26.1 34.3 36.8 39.9 42.6 31.3 27.7

LU - Luxembourg 0.3 - - - - - - - -

NL - The Netherlands 51.9 41.4 44.5 42.9 38.9 29.4 24.5 - -

PT - Portugal 0.9 0.8 1.4 1.3 0.6 1.2 0.6 0.6 1.6

SE - Sweden 25.1 24.6 29.3 24.6 - - - - -

UK - United Kingdom 32.5 21.4 - - - - - -

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Table 4. Personnel working on RTD&D for RES in the Government Sector in 2001, expressed in Full Time

Equivalent (FTE) and Headcount (i.e. including persons only partly working on renewables).The personnel are disaggregated per Energy Source, occupation and qualification. The

selected countries have a significant quantity of data collected on this matter.

FTE Headcount

Energy source AT DE DK ES IT AT DE ES FI IT UK

Total RTD&D personnel

for RES in the Government

Sector 114 869 196 178 164 114 1217 214 233 164 438

Biomass 35 92 59 30 45 35 129 40 195 45 93

Geothermal 5 75 0 -- 0 5 105 -- 0 0 0

Hydro 15 8 0 -- 0 15 11 -- 5 0 3

Biogas, landfill and sewagegas 5 0 6 -- 0 5 0 -- 0 0 22

Solar -- 410 53 133 116 -- 574 154 10 116 173

Photovoltaics 15 460 19 35 50 15 644 44 -- 50 170

Solar thermal 30 26 34 90 60 30 36 100 -- 60 3

Other Solar 3 9 0 8 6 3 13 10 -- 6 0

Tide energy 0 0 0 -- 0 0 0 -- 0 0 6

Wave energy 0 0 0 -- 0 0 0 -- 0 0 17

Wind 4 55 18 15 3 4 77 20 23 3 60

Other RES 2 145 41 -- 0 2 203 -- -- 0 64

Occupation

Researchers 100 652 -- 92 97 100 913 109 -- 97 --

Technicians and equivalent 14 152 -- 71 40 14 213 85 -- 40 --

Other support staff -- 65 -- 15 26 -- 91 20 -- 26 --

Qualification

University degrees at PhD

level 80 -- -- 31 0 14 -- 15 -- 10 --Other post-secondary nontertiary diplomas 0 -- -- 32 0 80 --. 35 -- -- --

Diplomas of secondary

education 0 -- -- 15 63 -- -- 44 -- -- --

Other tertiary level diplomas 0 -- -- 0 0 -- -- 25 -- 63 --Basic university degrees

below the PhD level 20 -- -- 90 91 -- -- 0 -- -- --

Other qualifications 14 -- -- 10 10 20 --. 95 -- 91 --

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Table 5. Expenditures and personnel involved in RTD&D for RES in the Other sectors of economy(Business enterprise, Higher Education and Private non-profit sectors) in 2001. The selectedcountries have a significant quantity of data collected on this matter.

AT FI FR DE IT LU PT ES NL

Private Expenditures (Meuro 2002)

Business enterprise 3.1 38.5 34.6 142.3 7.5 0.3 0.3 4.7 60.9

Higher Education -- -- -- 27.4 -- -- 0.4 0.3 --

Private non-profit 1.5 -- 0.0 0.0 -- -- 0.4 0.0 --

Total 4.6 38.5 34.6 182.9 7.5 0.3 1.1 5.1 65,7

Personnel (Headcount)Business enterprise 30 -- -- 500 47 -- -- 23 --Higher Education -- -- -- 770 -- 0 -- 10 --

Private non-profit 15 -- -- 0 -- -- -- 0 --Total Headcount 45 -- -- 1270 47 -- -- 33 --

Personnel (FTE)

Business enterprise 30 -- -- 357 34.5 -- -- -- --Higher Education -- -- -- 550 -- 0 -- -- --

Private non-profit 15 -- -- 0 -- -- -- -- --

Total FTE 45 -- -- 907 34.5 -- -- -- --

Table 6. Total expenditures per EU Country on RTD&D for RES in 2001 (Million Euro 2002)

Countries Government Sector Other Sectors Total Expenditure

AT 7.9 4.6 12.5

BE 12.1 n.a. 12.1

DE 111.9 182.9 294.8

DK 24.0 n.a. 24.0

EL 2.5 n.a. 2.5

ES 24.6 5.1 29.7

FI 13.1 38.5 51.6

FR 18.0 34.6 52.6

IE 0.3 n.a. 0.3

IT 25.2 7.5 32.7

LU 0.3 0 0.3

NL 50.0 65.7 115.7

PT 0.9 1.1 2.0

SE 30.1 n.a. 30.1

UK 28.3 n.a. 28.3

Total EU

countries 349.3 340.0 689.3

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An important outcome of REDS was to find out there are not complete international data on privateexpenditures, nor even on the personnel involved in RD&D in the renewable energy sector.

The REDS database on RD&D expenditures for RES results to be comparable with the IEA one,further improving and completing the data it contains. The main difference, apart from the recovery

of some missing data, consists in the inclusion of local government funds and private expenditures,which are not included in the IEA database nor in other previous studies.From the aggregation of IEA and REDS databases, a complete snapshot of the expenditure forRD&D for the renewable energy sector in the Government Sector can be obtained, as shown inTable 7. The relation between the definition of technologies is shown in Table 8.

Table 7. Government Expenditures for RTD&D for RES (Million Euros 2002).

Country 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993

AT 8.0 6.7 9.6 10.3 7.8 6.5 8.4 7.2 5.6

BE 12.4 6.6 3.1 1.0 2.2 2.0 4.5 3.7 3.4

DE 113.8 130.8 144.5 158.2 146.7 158.4 130.8 84.9 128.5

DK 25.9 16.9 16.9 19.7 17.9 13.9 17.3 18.5 21.3

EL 2.6 2.0 2.2 2.5 3.3 3.3 6.0 3.4 3.0

ES 25.5 18.6 17.1 22.3 16.4 15.5 15.4 15.7 22.1

FI 13.3 13.7 9.6 8.7 12.0 7.4 5.9 5.7 6.0

FR 18.3 13.5 13.0 4.0 2.9 4.8 5.1 5.2 5.5

IE 0.3 0.8 -- -- -- -- -- -- --

IT 25.8 30.0 26.1 34.3 36.8 39.9 42.6 31.3 27.7

LU 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

NL 51.1 39.5 41.2 39.3 35.4 26.7 22.3 25.1 20.1

PT 0.9 0.8 1.4 1.3 0.6 1.2 0.5 0.6 1.4

SE 25.3 25.3 30.9 26.5 8.8 8.6 13.8 18.2 15.2

UK 32.5 21.4 7.9 5.7 7.7 11.4 17.5 17.9 30.2

Total 356.1 326.8 323.5 333.8 298.6 299.7 290.1 237.3 290.0

Sources: REDS (black values) and IEA (blue values) databases.

Table 8. Relations between IEA and REDS RES technology definitions

REDS IEA

Total Total renewable energy

Biomass Biomass

Hydro Total hydro

Biogas, landfill and sewage gas Biomass

Solar Total solar

Photovoltaics Solar photo-electric

Solar thermal Solar thermal-electric

Other solar Solar heating & cooling

Tide energy Ocean

Wave energy Ocean

Wind Wind

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Evaluation of data consistency

The completeness of the data collected was checked in the evaluation phase and a cross-nationalcomparison was implemented. The quality of colleted data was evaluated with reference to the

quantity, quality and validity, as shown in Table 7. The main conclusion of the evaluation process

was that the consistency of the gathered data is sufficient for a survey of EU spending on RTD&D inthe field of RES, but it could be improved and kept updated under a new project.

The area where most difficulties were met in finding reliable information is the structure of

financing. REDS effort in reconstructing the flows of funds from the sources to the researchperformers did not supply a clear picture because in many countries the channels of financing arequite diverse and dispersed. The role of private financers did not result to be clear in many countries.

Table 7. Overall REDS assessment per country

Country Validity Quality Quantity

Austria Good Good GoodBelgium Sufficient Moderate Moderate

Denmark Sufficient Moderate Sufficient

Finland Sufficient Good Good

France Sufficient Moderate Moderate

Germany Good Good Good

Greece Poor Poor Poor

Ireland Sufficient Sufficient Moderate

Italy Good Sufficient Good

Luxembourg Sufficient Moderate Poor

Portugal Sufficient Sufficient Sufficient

Spain Moderate Sufficient Good

Sweden Sufficient Moderate Sufficient

Netherlands Good Good Sufficient

UK Sufficient Good Good

Source: REDS project.

Good : data requirements are exceeded

Sufficient : complies with data requirements

Moderate : attention has been paid to data but not sufficient

Poor : not available or totally not in compliance with requirements

This overall evaluation is based on the following conclusions:

- Country data are sufficient considering time and budget constraints;

- Availability and reliability of Government expenditures for 2000 and 2001 per RES variedfrom country to country;

- Six countries provided a variety of good quality data, the rest was less successful;

- In the overall assessment per country, 11 countries have two out of three criteria sufficient orgood;

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- Comparison of Government expenditures and Elaboration of performance indicators ispossible for most countries;

- Collected data are sufficient for project goals, as Table 8 on cross country comparisonunderlines.

Table 8. Cross country evaluation

Country Availability Comparability

Austria Sufficient Good

Belgium Good Moderate

Denmark Moderate Moderate

Finland Good Good

France Sufficient Moderate

Germany Sufficient GoodGreece Moderate Poor

Ireland Moderate Sufficient

Italy Sufficient Sufficient

Luxembourg Moderate Moderate

Portugal Moderate Sufficient

Spain Sufficient Moderate

Sweden Sufficient Moderate

Netherlands Sufficient Good

UK Sufficient Sufficient

Source: REDS project.

Good : no restrictions for cross country comparison

Sufficient : cross country comparison can be performed, some comments needed

Moderate : specific comments needed with results of cross country comparison

Poor : totally insufficient for cross country comparison

The proposed methodology for data collection has proven to be adequate and workable, even if

about half of the countries still need to organise the collection and management of RES RTD&D

expenditures. As a result the data currently available are rather poor for some countries. Moreover,different gathering methodologies influenced the quality of the data collected. Table 9 shows the

reliability of collected data with reference to the Government expenditures for 2000 and 2001.

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Table 9. Availability and reliability of most important data (Government expenditures for 2000 and2001 per RES) per country

Country

Availability of Government

expenditures for 2000 and 2001 perRES Reliability coefficient*

Austria Available 10

Belgium Available 5

Denmark Partially available 4,5

Finland Available 8

France Available 9,9

Germany Available 9,1

Greece Partially available 6

Ireland Partially available 7,8

Italy Available 9

Luxembourg Partially available 3

Portugal Partially available no data

Spain Available 9

Sweden Available 4,3

The Netherlands Available 8

UK Available 7

Source: REDS project.* The average of all reliability coefficients is taken.

Available = all data (on RES) is available;

Partially available = data is only partially available;

Not available = data is not available;

= data is unreliable (reliability coefficient is < 6 or no data is provided)

Evidence from data collected and elaboration of performance indicators

The crude data sometimes are hard to read. For this reason an elaboration of performance indicatorsfor RTD&D spending for renewable energy in the EU countries has been performed on the basis of

the collected data, to highlight the commitment of the EU member countries and the success factorsin this field.

Measuring RTD&D performance poses many problems. This can be related to the nature of the

RTD&D activity which is a highly uncertain and lengthy process. Furthermore, being RTD&D onlyone of the components of much more complex innovation systems it is difficult to establish a direct

relation between RTD&D spending and any output.

Different indicators can be used to express the RTD&D intensity as well as the RTD&Dperformance of a country in the sector of renewable energy sources. A number of such indicators,which are rigorously defined in the report, have been evaluated within the REDS project.

The project concentrated on the following performance indicators:

- RTD&D intensity, defined as

incidence of RES RTD&D expenditure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP),

ratio of RES RTD&D expenditure and total governmental budget,

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RES RTD&D expenditure per capita,

ratio of RES RTD&D expenditure and general RTD&D budget for energy,

ratio of RES RTD&D expenditure and total national RTD&D budget;

- correlation between governmental and private spending;

- RES RTD&D expenditure per human resources involved in RES RTD&D;

- RES RTD&D expenditure and number of patents in a specific technological sector.

Figure 3 shows the RTD&D intensity and RES RTD&D intensity. For many countries the RESRTD&D intensity correlates to the countries RTD&D intensity. Only in France and Ireland RESRTD&D intensity seems to be at a lower level. RES RTD&D intensity in Denmark and The

Netherlands is the highest of the EU countries.

Figure 3. RTD&D intensity (%) and RES RTD&D intensity (%), 2000

0,00%

0,50%

1,00%

1,50%

2,00%

2,50%

3,00%

3,50%

4,00%

Austr

ia

Belg

ium

Denm

ark

Finla

nd

Fran

ce

Ger

man

y

Gree

ce

Irela

nd Italy

Luxe

mbu

rg

Neth

erla

nds

Portu

gal

Spai

n

Swed

en

Unite

dKi

ngdo

mEU

-15

RD&D

expenditure/GDP

0,000%

0,002%

0,004%

0,006%

0,008%

0,010%

0,012%

0,014%

0,016%

0,018%

0,020%

RES

RD&D

expenditure/GDP

RD&D expenditure/GDP (%)

RES RD&D expense/GDP (%)

Comparing the ratio of RTD&D expenditures for RES and the total governmental budget of the EU-

15 countries shows similar differences. Between 1996 and 2001, some Member States spent about0.02% of their total national budget annually (which is the sum of the budgets of the government

level and the regional administration level) while other countries spent 0.01% or less. Denmark,Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have a leading position in this respect.

Figure 4 shows the relationship between RTD&D budget for RES and RTD&D budget for the

overall energy sector. Excluding France, Ireland and Italy where the RES RTD&D seems to beunderrepresented, the expenses for RES increase proportional to the counties budgets for energyresearch. In Italy, the low share of RES RTD&D with regard to energy RTD&D is somewhat

compensated by the fact that the energy sector is the main part of all RTD&D activities, as the ratioof the budget of RTD&D for RES to the total RTD&D budget is in the European average withslightly more than 0.2%. On the other hand, this ratio in France is again the lowest with a value

below 0.06%. In Denmark and the Netherlands, the expenses of RTD&D for RES have the largestshare of all EU countries with about 0.7% of the total expenses for RTD&D.

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Figure 4. Ratio of the public budget for RTD&D of RES to the RTD&D budget for the energy sector(blue) and ratio of the public budget for RTD&D of RES to the total RTD&D budget (red)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Austr

ia

Belgi

um

Denm

ark

Finl

and

Fran

ce

Germ

any

Gree

ce

Irelan

dIta

ly

Neth

erlan

ds

Portu

gal

Spain

Swed

en

Unite

dKi

ngdo

m

Country

bu

dgetR&D

RES

/budgetR&D

energysector

0,00%

0,10%

0,20%

0,30%

0,40%

0,50%

0,60%

0,70%

0,80%

bu

dgetR&D

RES

/budgetR&

Sector specific distribution of RTD&D budget

Another important factor arising from the project is that the main focus for funding the RTD&D ofrenewable energies is put on different sectors depending on the country. In 2001, Germany, France,Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom mainly funded RTD&D in the field of photovoltaictechnology, using from 35 % (NL, UK) up to 65 % (IT for all solar technologies) of their total RESRTD&D budget. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden and Finland are putting the greatest

emphasis on the RTD&D of biomass, using 30 80 % of their RTD&D budgets for this purpose. InSpain, the RTD&D of wind energy is receiving the largest share of the governmental research anddevelopment budget amounting to about 35 %. In Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands the budgets

seem to be split more equally between the different sectors than in the other countries. Thedifferences between the EU-15 countries can not only be explained with regional differences like theavailability of the different renewable energy sources. In fact, it seems to be influenced by manydifferent factors, such as the general industrial and technological structure of a country.

In Figure 5 the number of employees and the number of patents (in 2001) is shown as a function ofthe governmental funding in 2001. Generally no strong correlation between the patent data andRTD&D expenditures can be found although a linear increase of patent output with RTD&D input issuggested. The number of researchers on the other hand could only be gathered with a low degree of

reliability in the REDS project. Therefore for the few countries where data on human resources inthe sector of PV technology were available a large statistical spread of this data is observed. In thisrespect Figure 5 illustrates the difficulties encountered in the REDS project, when statistical

correlations between RTD&D input and output have been calculated. This explains the fact that mostof the indicators calculated in the project focus on RTD&D input rather than on the correspondingoutput.

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Figure 5. Human resources and number of patents (right axis) in the photovoltaic sector as a function ofthe yearly funding of RTD&D of photovoltaics in 2001 by EU countries governments

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0

R&D input [mill. euro]

Numberofpatents

DE

NLIT

UK

FR

Correlation between governmental and private spending

With reference to the correlation between governmental and private spending data Figure 6 showsthat a positive correlation is found. Public budgets that are made available for RES RTD&D seem toattract private investment in RTD&D as well. In general, by funding RTD&D projects for RES, the

government seems to activate at least the same amount from private sources. Still the figure showsthat some countries are more successful in creating a leverage effect to the private market thanothers.

The 2000 data do not differ much from the 2001 data. Generally it has to be emphasised that the dataon private expenditures could only be collected with relatively large uncertainty and are expected tobe underestimated.

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Figure 6. Statistical correlation of the governmental and non governmental expenditures for RTD&D ofrenewable energies

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 140.0

governmental expenditures []

nongove

rnmentalexpenditures

[]

2001

2000

DE

NL

ESP

FR

Conclusion and recommendationsThe database created under REDS project is rather unique in Europe, being focused on RTD&D onrenewable energy and, even if it is still incomplete, represents a valuable tool for designing andevaluating national policies and to compare the commitment of the European Member States in the

development of renewable energy.

An essential step for the success of the project is thus the dissemination of its results and this booklet

is aimed to improve the understanding of the policies of the European Member States for research inthe field of RES. A comparison of the efforts made and of the output obtained can help the decisionmakers in making informed choices by being aware of what other countries are doing. The partners

of the REDS project are also available to participate to seminars or workshops to discuss the resultsand possible follow up of the work done. Their contacts can be found at the end of this publication.

A final recommendation is related to the EU financing for research activity: a process ofimprovement of the data collection from international organisations should start, in order to facilitatethe interpretation of trends for policy implementation. The inclusion of specific codes for financed

research projects (at EU as well as national level) could enhance the knowledge about the financedactivities.

As a final summary, Figure 7 gives an overall qualitative view of the spending for RES RTD&D inEurope (EU-15), from national and European sources, separating the public and private spending,the national (15 member States) and the EU spending (one fourth of the EU Fifth RTD Framework

Programme 1998-2002).

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Figure 7. The overall financing of RTD&D for RES in Europe in 2001 (EU and European MemberStates Government and Private sector)

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Total MS European Union

Meuro

Private Sector

Government Sector

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References

Bruel, R., Greisberger, H., Indinger, A., van Wees, M., de Laat, B., Clment, D., Linares, P. and

Montes, J., 2000, Priority Setting Initiative (PSI), Joule III project, available at

http://www.eva.wsr.ac.at/projekte/psi.htm. The project database is available at:

http://www.otri.upco.es/psi.htm.

Eurec Agency, 2002,In the future for renewable energy Prospects and directions. The Cromwell

Press.

EU Directive 2001/77 on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in

the internal electricity market, OJEC L 283 (27/10/2001).

European Commission (1997), Energy for the Future: Renewable Sources of Energy White Paper

for a Community Strategy and Action Plan, COM(97)599 final (26/11/97).

European Commission (2002), Inventory of public aid granted to different energy sources,Commission staff working paper.

Eurostat (2002),Energy and Renewable statistics, Luxembourg.

G8 Renewable Energy Taskforce, 2001. Taskforce on Renewable Energy, July.

Guy, K, 1998, Strategic Options for the Evaluation of the R&D Programmes of the European Union,

http://www.technopolis.co.uk/reports/stoa/title.htm .

IEA, statistics and data on RTD&D, OECD, Paris.

Lenz, S, 2000, Support of Renewable Energies in different countries , Bremer energie institut, www-

user.uni-bremen.de/~bei/download/re_support.pdf .

ObservER (Observatoire des nergies renouvelables), (2003), Energie Renouvelables en Europe :

les chiffres clefs, Observatoire des nergies renouvelables.

OECD, 2002, Frascati Manual 2002: Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys on Research and

Development and Main Science and Technology Indicators, Paris.

Olthof R., De Laat B., Clment D., Virdis, M., Smith A., 1998, Synergies between European and

National Strategies for Energy RTD, SENSER, Joule III project.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Battelle Memorial Institute, http://energytrends.

pnl.gov/index.htm.

World Energy Council, 2001,Energy Technologies for the Twenty-First Century, London.

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Web sites

http://www.cordis.lu/eesd/src/indicators.htm

http://www.jrc.es/cfapp/eneriure/analysis.htm

http://www.iea.org/public/studies/curves.htm

http://www.etde.org/etdeweb/

http://www.solarpaces.org/legislation.htm

http://www.enr-network.org/index2.lw

http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/default/launches/et21/et21.asp

http://www.otri.upco.es/Psi.htm

http://www.eu.fraunhofer.de/reds

http://www.iefe.unibocconi.it

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Contact persons

Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero and Barry RobertsonEuropean Commission, DG ResearchNew and Renewables Energy Sources Unit

Rue de la Loi 200, Brussels, B-1049tel: + 32 2 2950633

fax: + 32 2 2994991Barry.Robertson@cec.eu.intDomenico.Rossetti-di-Valdalberoec.eu.int

Arturo Lorenzoni

IEFE, Universit Commerciale Luigi Bocconi

viale Filippetti 9, 20122 Milanotel: +39 02 5836 3820

fax: +39 02 5836 3890

[email protected]

Mario RagwitzFraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation Research

Breslauer Str. 48, 76139 Karlsruhetel.: +49(0)721/6809-157fax: +49(0)721/6809-272

[email protected]

Emiel Hanekamp and Cees J.G. van HalenPricewaterhouseCoopers

Archimedeslaan 21P.O. Box 85096, 3508 AB UtrechtThe Netherlands

tel. +31 (0)30 - 2191304fax +31 (0)30 - 2195115

[email protected]

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European Commission

EUR 21346 European research spending for renewable energy sources

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities

2004 25 pp. 21.0 x 29.7 cm

ISBN 92-894-8286-9

res spending en

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