Europe invests €3.3 billion in green energy technologies R&D in one year

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: The JRC has published a new report showing that €3.3 billion was invested in Research and Development (R&D) in the area of low-carbon technologies in the EU in the year 2007 alone.

Of this, 56 percent came from industry, a figure that rises to 69 percent when taking into account only non-nuclear low-carbon energy technologies. The report also shows that both corporate and public R&D investment is largely concentrated in just a few EU Member States.

The Reference Report is the result of research carried out by the JRC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) and constitutes a snapshot of current industrial and public expenditure on R&D relating to the low-carbon energy technologies identified as a priority for the EU in the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan.

These technologies are: wind energy, photovoltaics, concentrating solar power (CSP), bioenergy, carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), smart grids, nuclear fission, hydrogen and fuel cells and nuclear fusion.

The publication of this report coincides with the launch of SETIS, the online Strategic Energy Technologies (SET-Plan) Information System, which provides the latest research results on the status, forecasts and R&D investment figures for low-carbon technologies.