EN    EN EN 
 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 7.10.2009 
SEC(2009) 1296 
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
Accompanying document to the  
  
COMMUNICATION FROM THE CO MMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMI TTEE OF THE REGIONS 
 
on Investing in the Development of Low Carbon Technologies  
(SET-Plan) 
   
R&D INVESTMENT IN THE PRIO RITY TECHNOLOGIES OF THE 
EUROPEAN STRATEGIC EN ERGY TECHNOLOGY PLAN  
 
  
{COM(2009) 519 final} 
{SEC(2009) 1295} {SEC(2009) 1297} {SEC(2009) 1298} 
 
EN ii   EN COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
R&D INVESTMENT IN THE PRIORITY  TECHNOLOGIES OF THE EUROPEAN 
STRATEGIC ENERGY TECHNOLOGY PLAN 
Table of contents 
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.........................................................................................iii 
2. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 8 3. METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................... 9 3.1. Scope of the report ....................................................................................................... 9 
3.2. Industrial R&D investments....................................................................................... 12 3.3. Member States' public R&D investments .................................................................. 26 3.4. EU FP6 public energy R&D investments .................................................................. 29 4. RESULTS .................................................................................................................. 30 4.1. Overall results ........................................................................................................... . 30 
4.2. R&D investments by SET- P priority technology ...................................................... 42 
4.3. Analysis of uncertainties............................................................................................ 59 5. CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 66 6. REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 73 7. List of acronyms......................................................................................................... 77 
 
EN iii   EN 1. EXECUTIVE  SUMMARY 
The present report aims at estimating the current research and development (R&D) 
investments in selected low- carbon energy technologies in th e EU-27 funded by the Member 
States, through the 6th EU Research and Euratom Framework Programmes and by companies 
with headquarters registered in the EU. Its u ltimate objective is to offer a benchmark of the 
current R&D spending on those tec hnologies to serve as a basis for the comparison with their 
future research investment needs. The presen t assessment forms a starting point for further 
work on this issue given the current lack of a comprehensive overview on corporate and 
public R&D investments in selected low-carbon technologies. It has been prepared by the 
Institute for Prospective Technological Studie s (IPTS) of the European Commission's Joint 
Research Centre (JRC) as a central referen ce input to the forthcoming Communication on 
Investing in the Development of Low Carbon Technologies. The Communi cation is part of 
the implementation of the Strategic Energy Te chnology Plan (SET-Plan) for Europe and will 
address the financing needs of select ed low-carbon technologies in Europe. 
This report forms part of th e regular mapping of energy resear ch capacities that is being 
undertaken within SETIS (SET-Plan Information Sy stem). It benefited substantially from the 
review organised within the Eu ropean Commission's Joint Research Centre in the context of 
SETIS and from comments provided by experts from the European Commission's Directorate 
Generals for Energy and Transpor t (TREN) and for Research (RTD), who initiated this work. 
Furthermore, numerous external experts provided valuable inputs at vari ous stages of this 
report. A consultation process with Member St ates in the frame of the SET-Plan Steering 
Group Sherpa meetings largely contributed to th e analysis of public R&D investments, while 
information supplied by companies and industry associations was important for assessing 
corporate R&D efforts.  
The technologies considered in the present an alysis include those for which the SET-Plan 
proposed to launch European Indu strial Initiatives a nd those for which a dedicated European 
programme already existed: wind energy, photovo ltaics (PV) and concen trating solar power 
(CSP), carbon dioxide capture an d storage (CCS), biofuels, hydrogen and fuel cells, smart 
grids, nuclear fission (with a focus on gene ration IV reactors), and nuclear fusion. For 
simplification, this group of technologies will be called 'SET-Plan priority technologies' in the 
following, often grouped into nuclear  and non-nuclear technologies. 
For corporate and Member States' national public R&D spending the focus of the analysis lies 
on the 2007 figures while the relevant EU R&D i nvestments are annualis ed figures under FP6 
(2002-2006). In order to avoid putting too much we ight to one-off events or data mavericks, 
annual averages of the public  national R&D spending betw een 2002 and 2007 are also 
included for comparison.  
As data on corporate R&D investment are sketc hy, especially at the level of technological 
detail required, a novel approach for estimating them has been developed for the present assessment. For each SET-Plan priority tec hnology, the number of key R&D investors has 
been identified. A company's overall R&D invest ment has then been allocated to individual 
technologies based on the combination of pub licly available information with expert 
judgment. Hence, the results on ly provide a rough estimation of  research efforts and should 
not be used without taking into account the methodological limitations of this approach.  
 
EN iv   EN With regard to public nationa l R&D funding, the most recent publicly availabl e data (2007) 
were used from the Eurostat database on G overnment Budget Appropriations or Outlays on 
R&D (GBAORD) and in particular the Interna tional Energy Agency's (IEA) statistics on 
Research, Development and Demonstration (R D&D), complemented by national information 
that was directly provided by a number of Me mber States. Unfortuna tely, both the GBAORD 
and the IEA databases miss some entries at the technological le vel of detail needed, and only 
19 of the EU Member States are covered in the IEA RD&D statistics as the remaining 
Member States are not IEA members. Data mi ssing for 2007 were gap filled with data from 
previous years if available or data taken from official national sources.  
Relevant EU R&D funding under the 6th Research Framework Programme and the 
EURATOM Framework Programme has been taken into account. Funds under these 
programs have been assessed on the basis of individual projects, going beyond projects 
financed under the 'core' energy budget line 's ustainable energy systems', and also including 
relevant projects funded under budget lines such  as 'sustainable surface transport' or 
'horizontal research activities involving small a nd medium sized enterpri ses (SMEs)' etc. An 
annual average of the commitments has been  used for these multiannual programmes (2002-
2006).  
Both the basic data as well as the approach ap plied in the present study are associated with 
uncertainties, which have been identified  and quantified to the extent possible1. The largest 
source of error derives from the assumption-ba sed allocation process used for breaking down 
a company's R&D investment into individual technologies. With re gard to public R&D 
investments, the differences in the extent to which individual Member States include regional 
funding, institutional budgets and support to dem onstration activities in their submission to 
the International Energy Agency adds some uncertainty. Overall, it is estimated that the cumulative error margin of total R&D investment s in SET-Plan priority  technologies does not 
exceed ± 24% even though higher uncertainties ma y apply to the results related to one 
individual technology. The order of magnitude of the results obtained in the present report is 
also supported by a comparison with other sources  both at the aggregated level and at the 
level of individual technologies  and funders. It can thus be considered as a reasonable 
approximation of the present R&D investments. He nce, despite the limitations of the present 
analysis, some policy-relevant conclusions can be drawn from the present assessment: 
Investments dedicated to R&D in non-nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies amounted 
to €2.38 billion in 2007
2 with a division that is roug hly balanced across individual 
technologies 
Investments in non-nuclear ener gy R&D in SET-Plan priority technologies are estimated at 
€2.38 billion. The R&D investments dedicated to  CCS, smart grids, biofuels, wind energy and 
photovoltaics are in-between €270 million and €380 million each. The substantially larger 
investments for hydrogen and fuel cells resear ch (€616 million) may be explained by the 
diversity of technologies that are subsum ed under this heading, thus attracting R&D 
investments from many large and small compan ies from a broad variety of sectors (e.g. car 
                                                 
1 The estimates of industrial R&D investments of the present report most likely constitute a lower 
estimate of industrial research efforts due to the lack of data and the limitation in the number of 
companies included in the assessmen t. The extent of the related unc ertainties could, however, not be 
quantified. 
2 2007 figures are provided for corporate and Member States' national public R&D spending while the 
relevant EU R&D investments are annualised figures under FP6 (2002-2006). 
 
EN v   EN manufacturers, electric utilitie s, chemical companies and com ponent suppliers). At the same 
time, few countries and companies are active in research on concentrating solar power 
technologies (CSP), explaining th e comparatively low R&D inve stments in this field (€86 
million). 
Industry finances large parts of the R&D of no n-nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies  
Corporate R&D investments in non-nuclear S ET-Plan priority technologies reached €1.66 
billion in 2007, thus accounting fo r 69% of the total investments.3 This highlights the active 
role of EU-based companies in those technol ogies and the acknowledgment of the need for 
further research in order to strengthen the pos ition of the EU in these promising technologies. 
However, the R&D intensities found for some of  the sectors relevant for the SET-Plan (in-
between 2.2% and 4.5%) remain well below the in tensities in other i ndustrial sectors that 
experienced a boom in recent years; for example,  the IT-related sector s 'software', 'computer 
hardware' or 'semi-conductors' experienced R&D intensities in the order of 8% to 18% over 
the past five years4, 5.  
The share of corporate R&D investments is elev ated for the more mature technologies wind 
energy and biofuels6. In comparison, the share of corporat e R&D investments is lower for PV, 
hydrogen and fuel cells and CSP, as well as fo r generation IV nuclear  reactors and nuclear 
fusion. These may be considered as less mature, in particular if we assume that research in PV 
concentrates on new technologies instead on the more mature cr ystalline silicon cells. Note, 
however, that the results descri bing the distribution of R&D spending by investor must be 
interpreted with care due to the differences in  the nature between corporate and public R&D 
spending.  
The assessment indicates that innovation in th e energy sector may not predominantly being 
carried out by classical energy companies such as  electric utilities or oil/gas suppliers, which 
invest only a very small per centage of their revenues in R& D. Industries with elevated 
research activities in low- carbon energy technologies include companies active in industrial 
machinery, chemicals, energy components or those that are exclusively active in one area (such as a specialised wind energy company).  
Public R&D spending on non-nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies is increasing despite a 
decline in the overall energy research budgets, but  synergies across Member States have not yet 
been fully exploited 
Despite an overall decrease in energy research budgets over the past two decades (largely due 
to shrinking nuclear R&D budget s) with a slight upward trend in more recent years, 
investments in non-nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies have been more or less stable 
throughout the 1990s with an important increase since the beginning of the new century. In 
                                                 
3 The share of corporate R&D inve stments drops to 56% of the total if nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies are also included, see Figure 1. 
4 Note, however, that R&D intensities cannot directly be compared between different sectors due to the 
considerable differences in their innovation system s (see e.g. Malerba, 2004; Kaloudis and Pedersen, 
2008, on the energy sector).  
5 Figures relate to EU-based companies and are taken from various versions of the EU Industrial R&D 
Investment Scoreboards (Herna ndez Guevara et al., 2008). 
6 It is also elevated for CCS. This may, however, be due to an under-estimation of the public R&D 
efforts. 
 
EN vi   EN 2007, Member States invested €571 million in R&D related to the non-nuclear SET-Plan 
priority technologies, which is equivalent to 34.5% of their total public non-nuclear energy 
R&D budgets, and indicates the importance give n to these technologies. On top of the 
national funding, EU investments under FP6 added another €157 million for the public 
research on those technologies.  
One may be led to compare these R&D invest ments of €728 million with a similar selection 
of public funds in other world re gions. This would put the EU ahead of the US American and 
Japanese 'non-nuclear SET-Plan  R&D spending', in spite of both regions having slightly 
higher overall energy R&D budgets.  
Such comparison, however, may be misleading as  it hides important differences in the way 
energy R&D is being financed and carried out acr oss the different regions. Unlike the strong 
focus and coordination provided for energy (research) in the US  by the Department of Energy 
(DoE) and in Japan through the Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), no 
unified European programme currently exists for fostering low-carbon technologies with the 
exception of fusion related research. Instea d, pan-European cooperation is limited and 
synergies between Member States in the develo pment of new energy technologies have so far 
not been fully exploited, although recent initia tives such as the SET-Plan or the ERA-NET 
scheme have started to address this problem . Furthermore, R&D activities within Member 
States are often also fragmented, often due to the complexity created by the involvement of 
several ministries and agencies in the manageme nt of different parts of national programmes. 
This fragmentation would tend to distort any benchmarking of the US and Japanese funds 
with the aggregated R&D investment of EU Member States and the EU. 
On top of the €2.38 billion invested in non-nuclear  SET-Plan priority technologies, €0.94 billion 
are dedicated to nuclear SET-Plan priority tech nologies, with fusion research receiving high 
public support due to the capital invest ment needs of the ITER construction 
Investments dedicated to R&D in nuclear SET-Plan prior ity technologies (excluding 
treatment of nuclear waste, radioprotection etc. ) are estimated at €939 million, with an almost 
equal split between reactor-related fission re search and fusion research. Nuclear-fission 
related research in the context of the SET- Plan focuses on R&D investments for Generation 
IV reactors. As data on nuclear R&D budgets ar e not available in the necessary detail, they 
were approximated by all nuclear reactor relate d R&D investments, which implies the risk of 
overestimating the Generation IV reactor R& D investments. Total nuclear reactor R&D 
investments sum to €458 million, almost half of  which is financed by the private sector 
(45%). France accounts for more th an half (52%) of the aggregat ed EU Member States' public 
nuclear reactor R&D spending and French co mpanies hold an even higher share in the 
industrial nuclear reactor  related R&D investments. The tota l investment dedicated to fusion 
research is around €480 million but th ere is hardly any private se ctor R&D investment due to 
the long time horizon of this research area a nd the high capital investment needed for the 
construction phase of the International Ther monuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The 
Member States account for 58% of all R&D inve stment in fusion, while the EU share is 42%. 
Corporate and public R&D investments in SET-Plan priority technologies largely concentrate in 
only few Member States 
Both public and private R&D investments in (nuclear and non-nuclear) SET-Plan priority 
technologies are largely concen trated (see Figure 1). For many technologies, the countries 
 
EN vii   EN with high public R&D funds simultaneously  account for the largest corporate R&D 
investments.  
The estimates of the present re port indicate that 99%  of the aggregated national R&D budgets 
on SET-Plan priority technologies originate fr om eleven Member States namely France, 
Germany, Italy, the UK, Denmark, Spain, the Ne therlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland and 
Austria with the first three accounting for two th irds. At the same time, R&D investments in 
SET-Plan priority technologies from compan ies located in Germany, France, the UK, 
Denmark, Spain and Sweden were found to acc ount for almost 95% of  the total corporate 
R&D investments. In many cases, the group of countries that give strong public support to 
research into a certain technology simultaneously  accounts for the largest R&D investment of 
industry into that technology. This may be s een as an indication of  a positive correlation 
between public research support a nd industrial R&D investment.  
Total estimated R&D investments in SET-P priority energy 
technologies
56%11%
33%Corporate R&D investment
(2007) 
Public EU (FP6 respectivelyEURATOM; annual aver age)
Public R&D spending of EU
Member States (2007)
~ €3.32 
billion 
(of which 72% 
is non nuclear)
Distribution of corporate R&D investments in SET-P priority 
technologies across EU Member States in 2007 
(location of company headquarters)
SpainSwedenOthersAustria
Belgium
FinlandItaly
Denmark
UK
FranceGermany
~ €1.86 
billionDistribution of public R&D investments in SET-P priority 
technologies across EU Member States in 2007
Others
DenmarkSwedenFinland
Belgium
Netherlands
Spain
UK
ItalyGermanyFranceAustria
~ €1.10 
billionTotal estimated R&D investments in SET-P priority energy 
technologies
56%11%
33%Corporate R&D investment
(2007) 
Public EU (FP6 respectivelyEURATOM; annual aver age)
Public R&D spending of EU
Member States (2007)
~ €3.32 
billion 
(of which 72% 
is non nuclear)
Distribution of corporate R&D investments in SET-P priority 
technologies across EU Member States in 2007 
(location of company headquarters)
SpainSwedenOthersAustria
Belgium
FinlandItaly
Denmark
UK
FranceGermany
~ €1.86 
billionDistribution of public R&D investments in SET-P priority 
technologies across EU Member States in 2007
Others
DenmarkSwedenFinland
Belgium
Netherlands
Spain
UK
ItalyGermanyFranceAustria
~ €1.10 
billion
 
Figure 1: Approximate R&D investment in SET-Plan priority technologies (nuclear and non-
nuclear) by Member State 
Source: JRC-IPTS, rounded numbers 
Note: Figures are subject to uncertainties in particular for industrial R&D investments. Uncertainties become 
more elevated when displayi ng corporate R&D investments at Member St ate level given that the availability of 
data differed between countries. Furthermore, the regional allocation of R&D investment by site of the 
registered companies' headquarters needs to be considered when interpreting the above figure . 
 
EN 8   EN 2. INTRODUCTION 
The present report aims to provide a rough es timate of the current corporate and public 
research and development (R&D) investments in low-carbon energy technologies in the EU-
27. Its ultimate objective is to offer a benchmark of their current R&D spending to serve as a 
basis for the comparison with the future R&D investments that will be needed for addressing the key technology challenges identified by the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-
Plan).  
The report has been prepared by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the 
European Commission JRC as part of the regul ar mapping of energy res earch capacities that 
is being undertaken within SETIS. It has been used as an input to the forthcoming 
Communication on Investing in  the Development of Low Carbon Technologies . This 
communication is foreseen as part of the implementation of the SET-Plan (European 
Commission, 2007a; European Council, 2008). It  will address options for meeting the 
financing needs of low-carbon technologies. As a st arting point, it will thus need to identify 
the potential gap between present R&D inve stments and the investments required for 
achieving the SET-Plan targets.  
This report assesses the current R&D spending in the EU-27 allocated towards low-carbon 
energy technologies. The technologies consider ed include those for which the SET-Plan 
proposes to launch European I ndustrial Initiatives, i.e. wind;  solar photovoltaic (PV) and 
concentrating solar power (CSP); carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS); smart grids; (2
nd 
generation) transport biofuels; nuclear fission (with a focus on generation IV reactors). Two 
additional technologies, for which joint activitie s already existed and which are mentioned in 
the SET-Plan, are also assessed: hydrogen and fuel cells, and nuclear fusion. For 
simplification, this group of technologies will be called 'SET-Plan priority technologies' in the 
following, sometimes grouped into nuclear and non- nuclear technologies due to the distinct 
research structure between the two. 
For the technologies listed above, data on R& D spending by industry, the public sector and 
from EU funds have been gathered7. However, data on corporat e R&D investment are scarce. 
The data situation becomes even worse when looking into R&D spending at the level of the 
aforementioned technological fields. Various data sources and approaches have therefore been 
tested and combined where feasible. The me thodology developed for ob taining estimates of 
the corporate R&D is described in detail in chapter 2 of this report. It is complemented by a description of the data sources  used with regard to publi c national R&D funding, i.e. the 
GBAORD from Eurostat and the RD&D statistics of the International Energy Agency. For an 
overview of the EU funding, the 6
th Research Framework Programme and the EURATOM 
Framework Programme have been assessed. 
The results of this approach are presented and discussed in chapter 3, both for aggregates and 
for individual SET-Plan priority technologi es. To the extent possible, a breakdown by 
Member States is shown for public funds. Mo reover, investments ar e grouped according to 
                                                 
7 Note that in some cases the allocation of research investment to either industry or the public sector is 
not straightforward. For example, in Denmark the electric utilities finance (via an add-on to the electricity bill) a research programme that is publicly controlled (SRS project, 2007). Also, part of 
companies' R&D expenditures may be (co-)financed with public money. The way in which this is 
tackled in the present report is described in the methodological part. 
 
EN 9   EN the source of funds and compared to other studie s where available. The chapter ends with an 
analysis of the uncertainties. Chapter four dr aws the main policy-rele vant findings from the 
present data assessment. However, given the lack  of data and the problems with compatibility 
across different data sources, the results of this  report must not be regarded as exhaustive and 
comprehensive.  
3. METHODOLOGY 
3.1. Scope of the report 
The objective of this report is  to estimate the current public  and industrial R&D investments 
directed towards SET-Plan pr iority technologies in the EU . These comprise wind energy; 
concentrating solar power (CSP) and solar photovoltaic (PV); carbon dioxide capture and 
storage (CCS); smart grids; transport biofuels; hydrogen and fuel cells; nuclear fission (with a 
focus on generation IV react ors); and nuclear fusion.  
The assessment is focused on a single indicator representing research and development inputs: 
the R&D investments. R&D outputs, such as i nnovation surveys or analyses of patents that 
are considered valuable indicators for innovation  activity (Griliches, 199 0; Jaumotte and Pain, 
2005), are not included.  
Besides, the indicator 'R&D investments' ma y be too narrow for capturing the scope of 
industrial R&D activities, parts of which may be conducted within  departments or groups that 
are not formally designated as  'R&D' departments (see Freeman and Soete, 2009 with further 
references8). Furthermore, a considerable part of innovation in the energy  sector takes place 
on the side of the component supplier, i.e. ne w technologies are rather bought in by the energy 
companies than being developed in-house (J acquier-Roux and Bourgeois, 2002; Kaloudis and 
Pedersen, 2008). Even though the approach of  the present report aims at going beyond the 
boundaries of the classical energy sector, it can capture this phenomenon only to a limited 
extent, thus leading to a systematic under-estim ation of innovation efforts related to energy. 
Future work that considers major parts of the s upply chains in various energy sectors might be 
able to overcome this.  
Above and beyond, innovation depends on a wide variety of factors throughout all phases of 
the innovation chain, i.e. the scie ntific research, development a nd market introduction of new 
technologies. Hence, a more comprehensive ap proach would need to consider the broader 
context of 'push' and 'pull' policies and meas ures that address the research, development, 
demonstration and deploymen t of innovative technologies9 (see Figure 2), as well as 
institutional capacities, the role of stakeholde rs, related policies and measures and their use 
and interplay (see e.g. Foxon, 2003; Grubb, 2004; Kaloudis and Pedersen, 2008, chapter 5.2).  
Notwithstanding the above-listed limitations of the focus on one single indicator, the present 
analysis of energy-related R&D investments can help in better understanding the status quo of 
                                                 
8 Freeman and Soete (2009) also apply Goodhart's la w (Goodhart, 1972) to Sc ience, Technology and 
Innovation Indicators: once these indicators are made policy targets, they loose much of their 
information content that qualified them to play such a role. 
9 Empirically, Johnstone et al. (2008) show on the basis of an assessment of exhaustive panel data on 
patent applications that both, dedicated R&D spending  and (quantity and price-based) 'pull-policies' are 
significant determinants of patenting in renewable energy.  
 
EN 10   EN one central step in the innovation cycle, without claiming to provide an indication of the total 
European innovation capacities with regard to SET-Plan priority technologies.  
Original figure: Grubb, 2004
Scope of the
assessment
Original figure: Grubb, 2004
Scope of the
assessment
 
Figure 2: Steps of techno logical innovation and sc ope of the assessment  
Source: Grubb, 2004 (original figure) 
But even the present assessment which focuse s only on R&D investments requires an upfront 
definition of the research, development and de monstration activities  that it covers:  
R&D covers three activities a ccording to the Fras cati Manual (OECD, 2002): basic research, 
applied research, and experimental development. Basic research is experimental or theoretical 
work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of 
phenomena and observable facts, without any part icular application or use in view. Applied 
research is also original i nvestigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, 
however, directed primarily towards a specifi c practical aim or objective. Experimental 
development is systematic work, drawing on ex isting knowledge gained from research and/or 
practical experience, which is directed to producing new mate rials, products or devices, to 
installing new processes, systems and services , or to improving substantially those already 
produced or installed. RD&D includ es demonstration in addition.  
The degree to which the financing of different RD &D activities are included in the figures of 
the present report differs between industrial and public national and EU funds as well as 
across individual Member States10: 
• Data on public national R&D inve stments of EU Member States  are generally taken from 
the IEA RD&D statistics (see section 1.1.1) or the GBOARD (socio-economic objective 
5). While the latter focuses on R&D, the IEA also includes demonstration activities. In 
practice, however, most Member States do either not provide data on funds directed 
towards demonstration or do not display them separately. Hence, data on aggregated public 
national funds of EU Member States dedicated to demonstration amount to some 9% of the 
                                                 
10 The aim of this section is to clarify the scope of RD&D covered in the present report. For a more 
detailed description of the IEA database see section 1.1.1. 
 
EN 11   EN total energy R&D budget, only. Differences in the share of funds directed towards 
demonstration occur between technologies, as illustrated in Figure 3. Given the high amounts needed for large-scale demonstration pr ojects and considering the data gaps, the 
figure on public support to demonstration activi ties included in the IEA database seem to 
be an under-estimation at the aggregated EU le vel. In the following, we thus assume that 
the IEA database largely focuses on R&D (a  hypothesis that is supported by the large 
similarity of the aggregated EU figures with  data from the GBOARD , the latter of which 
focusing on R&D only). Note also that basi c research shall be excluded in the IEA 
database unless it is clearly oriented towa rds energy-related technologies. However, in 
some Member States, the institutional budge ts included in the submission data may 
partially cover research of more basic nature. 
• Regarding the EU public R&D sp ending, only funds within the 6
th Research Framework 
Programme have been assessed. While these in deed include some support to demonstration 
activities, their main focus lies on R&D.  
• For estimating industrial R&D i nvestments, companies' annual report (largely via the 'EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard') have been used as a starti ng point. They thus 
follow the accounting definitions of R&D, such  as within the International Accounting 
Standard 38 ('Intangible Assets'), which uses the definition of R&D of the Frascati Manual 
(OECD, 2002). In general, technology demonstr ation mostly incurs engineering costs and 
is thus recommended to not be included unde r R&D investment. However, this can be 
expected to strongly depend on th e type of sector/ac tivity, influenced e.g. by the maturity 
of the technology and/or the pol icy support to its deployment.  
Following these considerations, the term R&D w ill be used in the following despite the fact 
that demonstration activities are included to a certain extent that varies across different 
funders, countries and companies. Note that even within  the category 'R&D' systematic 
differences may occur, for example between pub lic and industrial research with the former 
often focusing on research of a more basic na ture, while industry tends to finance more 
applied research.  
Share of demonstration activities in the non-nuclear 
SET-P technologies
020406080100120140160180200
CCS PV CSP Wind
energyTransport
biofuelsH2 and
fuel cellsSmart
Grids € millionDemonstration (D)
Research and Development (R&D)Public R&DD budget breakdown in 2007 
(Member States only)
050010001500200025003000
Total Energy R&D
budgetSET-Plan
technologiesNon-nuclear SET-P
technologies€ millionDemonstration (D)
Research and Development (R&D)9%
8%
15%
1%11%
3%30%
11%14%
29%Share of demonstration activities in the non-nuclear 
SET-P technologies
020406080100120140160180200
CCS PV CSP Wind
energyTransport
biofuelsH2 and
fuel cellsSmart
Grids € millionDemonstration (D)
Research and Development (R&D)Public R&DD budget breakdown in 2007 
(Member States only)
050010001500200025003000
Total Energy R&D
budgetSET-Plan
technologiesNon-nuclear SET-P
technologies€ millionDemonstration (D)
Research and Development (R&D)9%
8%
15%
1%11%
3%30%
11%14%
29%
 
Figure 3: Share of demonstration activiti es in the IEA RD&D statistics, 2007 
 
EN 12   EN Source: Data from IEA, gap filled and complemented with national data for DE, UK, FR, AT, BE. Irish data on 
demonstration activities (year 2006) could be obtained only for the total energy R&D budgets, but not broken 
down by technology.  
3.2. Industrial R&D investments 
3.2.1.  Allocating companies' annual R&D investments by technology 
3.2.1.1.  General approach 
Data on corporate R&D expenditures are difficult to obtain (see e.g. de Nigris et al., 2008; 
SRS Project, 2008; van Beeck et al., 2009; Wies enthal et al., 2008). The data become even 
sketchier when looking at the R&D expendi ture by technology. The difficulties can be 
explained by the lack of a regulatory framework that obliges private companies to report their 
R&D investment, the fact that some companies consider this information as confidential, and that others use them for st rategic purposes (Gioria, 2007). 
For this reason, there is currently no single database that can provide a comprehensive 
overview of industrial R&D inve stments dedicated to individua l technologies. In order to 
nevertheless gather a maximum of information, various data sources have been assessed in 
parallel in this report, all of which have th eir own specific strengths and shortcomings. The 
most promising method turned out to be a nove l and assumption-based ap proach. It combines 
data on R&D investments of individual compan ies, primarily taken from the EU Industrial 
R&D Investment Scoreboard (Hernández Guevar a et al., 2008), with additional information 
about the company, thus allowi ng a rough estimation of a comp anies' R&D investment by 
SET-Plan priority technology. 
This bottom-up approach has thus been chosen as a first option for deriving an estimation of 
the corporate R&D investments in the relevant t echnological fields. In brief, this approach 
includes the following steps:  
• The identification of key industria l players for a certain sector. 
• The gathering of information on R&D investme nts of these companies preferably through 
the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard , but also web-published annual reports or 
direct contacts. 
• For companies active in several technological fields (such as elec trical utilities, oil 
companies, component suppliers), an allocat ion of the R&D investments to individual 
technologies to the exte nt possible. For companies that ar e specialised in one technological 
field only, their entire R&D expenditure  was allocated to  that technology. 
• The summing up of the individual comp anies' R&D investments by technology. 
This approach has been complemented by data extracted from official  databases (BERD) and 
EU-financed projects (e.g. SRS NET: Scie ntific Reference System on new energy 
technologies, energy end-use e fficiency and energy RTD; and ERMINE: Electricity Research 
Road Map in Europe) as well as other literature, as sketched out in Figure 4. This is described in more detail in the following sections.  
 
EN 13   EN Identify key EU companies by technology
Approximate R&D expenditures by technologyYES NOR&D expenditure of the companySources: EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard; Annual Reports
Estimation for companies that are not listed on the stock exchange
Is the company 
active in one 
technological 
field only?
Allocate 100% of its 
R&D expenditures 
to the relevant 
technologyAllocate a certain 
part of the 
company’s R&D 
expenditure to the 
technology
Sum of R&D 
expenditure by 
technologyApproaches: Through direct contact; 
Additional information from the company, e.g.:
Corporate Social Responsibility reports; 
speeches; plans;
experts involvement;
assessment of R&D outcome (e.g. patents)
Application of R&D investments per R&D employee;
Check with ‘comparable’ companies;
Use of other studiesSources: Experts; breakdown of a sector’s turnover by company
Additional information sources: 
Eurostat BERD
SRS Project
ERMINE project
Proxies derived from turnover
New Energy Finance☺
☺ /.
Note: ☺indicate the level of certainty of the step / information underlying the stepIdentify key EU companies by technology
Approximate R&D expenditures by technologyYES NOR&D expenditure of the companySources: EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard; Annual Reports
Estimation for companies that are not listed on the stock exchange
Is the company 
active in one 
technological 
field only?
Allocate 100% of its 
R&D expenditures 
to the relevant 
technologyAllocate a certain 
part of the 
company’s R&D 
expenditure to the 
technology
Sum of R&D 
expenditure by 
technologyApproaches: Through direct contact; 
Additional information from the company, e.g.:
Corporate Social Responsibility reports; 
speeches; plans;
experts involvement;
assessment of R&D outcome (e.g. patents)
Application of R&D investments per R&D employee;
Check with ‘comparable’ companies;
Use of other studiesSources: Experts; breakdown of a sector’s turnover by company Sources: Experts; breakdown of a sector’s turnover by company
Additional information sources: 
Eurostat BERD
SRS Project
ERMINE project
Proxies derived from turnover
New Energy Finance☺
☺ /.
Note: ☺indicate the level of certainty of the step / information underlying the step 
Figure 4: Schematic overview of the methodol ogy applied for estimating corporate R&D 
investments by technology 
Source: JRC-IPTS 
3.2.1.2.  Breaking down corporate R&D investments  
As introduced above, an allocation of individu al companies' annual R&D investment to the 
various technologies of interest  was the central approach followed in the present report.  
The EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard proved to be the single most important data 
source for obtaining basic information on an nual corporate R&D investments (Hernández 
Guevara et al., 2008), which was us ed as a starting point for th e subsequent assessment. The 
data analysed relate to the companies R&D investments in 2007. The EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard provides data on inve stment in R&D from 2000 companies (1000 EU-
based and 1000 non-EU based). It  is prepared from companie s' annual audited reports and 
accounts
11. The companies are grouped by sectors of activity following the ICB classification 
(Industry Classification Benchmark). Companie s are allocated to th e country of their 
                                                 
11 A general concern raised with regard to assessing R&D expenditures based on the companies' annual 
reports is that the figures may include the parts financed through public budgets, thus creating problems with double-counting (SRS project, 2007). This problem does, however, not occur for the Scoreboard 
database, which only includes the R&D financed by the company as a general principle. If disclosed, 
the externally funded R&D parts (i.e. by public s ector as well as companies outside the group) are 
deducted. In case that a company do es not disclose the part of the R&D that has been externally funded, 
it cannot be deducted and the public part is thus in cluded in the company's investment, thus accepting a 
slight systematic error. 
 
EN 14   EN registered office, which may differ from the operational or R&D headquarters in some 
cases12. 
The Scoreboard's breakdown by field of activity  does not allow for the technology-oriented 
grouping required for this work. Furthermore, Jacquier-Roux and Bourgeois (2002) showed 
that much of the R&D efforts relevant for the energy sector are being carried out by the 
supplier of energy equipment, making the energy sector a supp lier-dominated sector in the 
taxonomy developed by Pavitt (1984). In orde r to capture the R&D investments of the 
different types of companies, the present re port therefore had to identify a number of 
companies that are considered relevant for rese arch in a certain SET-Plan priority technology 
instead of relying on existing classifications of  companies (such ICB or NACE, the statistical 
classification of economic activi ties). The assessment of the pr esent report is thus based on 
the estimation of R&D budgets from both traditi onal energy companies – such as 'oil and gas 
producers'; 'electricity'; 'gas, water and multiu tilities' following the ICB classification – and 
companies that are active in sectors like 'alternative ener gy'; 'automobiles and parts'; 
'chemicals'; 'construction and materials'; 'elect rical components and equipment'; 'industrial 
machinery'; 'industrial metals'; and 'general industrials'. 
For each of the technological fields of interest , key industrial EU-based companies have been 
identified. This has been based on analyses of the va rious markets (e.g. through the 
barometers from EUROBSERV'ER 2008a-c), e xpert knowledge and other sources (such as 
the members of Technology Platforms or associ ations; companies' internet websites). Of 
course, a number of companies are active in va rious fields simultaneously, which meant that 
they figure in various 'technology groups' at the same time. 
Such an approach bears the risk of missing a central player for R&D as the selection is 
strongly based on the market share of companie s. However, a large market share does not 
necessarily imply a high R&D intensity. This is supported by the fact  that innovation may 
happen on the component supplier side rather th an within the known energy companies. Since 
the lists of companies that are considered with in a certain field are not exhaustive, neglecting 
minor players that might, in sum, provide a far greater R&D comm itment; they tend to 
underestimate the total R&D efforts de dicated to SET-Plan technologies.  
Overall, a total of 136 companies were identif ied as central R&D investors on the SET-Plan 
priority technologies, a large number of which being simultaneously active in several SET-
Plan technologies. 72 of the 136 companies identified are listed among the TOP1000 R&D 
investors of the Scoreboard, allo wing the direct extraction of R&D investment data. However, 
for four of them, no further breakdown of  the R&D investment by technology could be 
performed. Some of the companies of intere st are smaller overall  R&D investors and 
therefore do not rank among the TOP1000 R&D inve stors; as they are nevertheless important 
for a certain (smaller) technological field, an in-depth research has been carried out by 
looking at a more detailed da tabase containing some 7000 companies, which is the basis 
underlying the EU Scoreboard. Data for 12 co mpanies was extracted from this extended 
database. A web-based search provided some information for 26 additional enterprises 
                                                 
12 Note that the way in which corporate R&D invest ments are allocated to co untries can significantly 
influence the outcome of the analysis. The EU In dustrial R&D Investment Scoreboard allocates 
companies to the country of their registered office, while BERD refers to all R&D activities performed 
by businesses within a particular sector and terr itory, regardless of the location of the business’s 
headquarters. This important difference needs to be kept in mind when comparing results from different 
studies one with another.  
 
EN 15   EN through e.g. annual reports or ot her information for those compan ies that are not  listed on the 
stock exchange and thus are no t obliged to publish th eir financial report. Haug et al. (2009) 
provided information for nine additional comp anies active in research on CSP. Combining 
data from the various sources, data were  available for 115 out of the 136 companies 
identified. 
The R&D Investment Scoreboard does not alloca te the R&D investments to individual energy 
technologies. For companies being active mostly  in one technological field (e.g. Vestas for 
wind power), one may assume that their R&D inve stment remains within their main field of 
business activity. This has been the case for around 25 companies, for which the R&D 
investments by technological fiel d could thus be identified w ith a high accuracy. For another 
eight companies, a very high confidence level co uld be obtained in the assumptions made in 
the present analysis building on information fr om official sources (see also section 4.3). 
For large companies operating in manifold areas, however, the amount of research 
investments that is dedicated to a certain t echnology cannot be directly derived from the R&D 
Investment Scoreboard. This is the case in pa rticular for car manufacturers, oil companies, 
electric utilities, and large co mponent manufacturers. For this  reason, the Scoreboard data 
proved to be of more direct help in the ar eas of PV and wind than for CCS, biofuels or 
hydrogen/fuel cells, with large multinational uti lities and oil businesses being more active in 
the latter fields. 
For the purpose of this report, the R&D inve stments of multi-business companies was divided 
up and allocated to the different technologies on the basis of assumptions. Companies' annual 
reports and corporate sustainability reports we re systematically analysed for additional 
information on the breakdown of R&D investme nts. Moreover, the websites of individual 
companies and associations were screened for further information, enha nced by free searches 
that revealed e.g. presentations and speeches from company key actors or  press releases. In 
very few cases, newspaper arti cles provided helpful informati on. For some companies, work 
that had previously been carried out at DG RT D and TREN has been used as input (Naneva 
and Paschos, 2008). In addition, information from literature (New Energy Finance, 2008; PWC et al., 2007) was used as a starting point.  Furthermore, some 30 companies or industry 
associations were contacted. This  direct contact allowed obtaini ng exact figures for four large 
companies, and helped to refine assump tions for another handful of companies. 
In the easiest cases, this additional information revealed the allocation of the R&D investment 
to the different technologies. For most comp anies, however, the R&D expenditures could be 
narrowed down to a particular field (e.g. 'renewab les') with a certain accuracy but then needed 
to be further split between the various re newable energy sources based on qualitative 
information. In that cases, some substantiated "g uess-timates" had to be performed in order to 
allocate their R&D investment to single technologies, based on information available for the 
individual companies obtained th rough the sources described above. 
This included, for example, the number of  researchers by field that allowed a rough 
estimation of the R&D investments by applying  an average R&D investment per research 
employee. Figure 5 shows information on R&D i nvestment per research employee gathered 
for 31 companies or research  centres. An average invest ment of €120000 to €150000 per 
research employee was found for 55% of them . This range was then used for further 
estimates, unless more precise figures coul d be obtained for the specific company. 
 
EN 16   EN 024681012141618
[90-120] [120-150] [150-180] >180
R &D  investment per research employee (in k€)Number of companies/subsidiairies
 
Figure 5: Distribution of R&D investments per research employee 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on a variety of information sources 
Other companies announced some future R&D i nvestment plans, which were subsequently 
"extrapolated" back to the 2007 data. In few cases , the substantiated assumptions were applied 
to other, similar companies as well. Often, th e R&D expenditures could be narrowed down to 
a certain field (e.g. 'renewables') with a certain accuracy but then needed to be further split 
between the various renewable energy sources based on qualitative information. 
For some selected important R&D investors, pa tent applications have been used as an 
indicator of the R&D breakdow n. Based on the assumption th at patents may reflect a 
company's research effort, which is supporte d by assessment that show a significant 
correlation between patents and R&D spending (e.g. Griliches, 1990; Jaumotte and Pain, 2005), the distribution of patents across the relevant technologies was used as a proxy for the 
distribution of its R&D expenditu res. Of course, linking input i ndicators such as energy R&D 
spending to output indica tors (such as patents
13) faces a number of problems. These occur in 
particular as the 'energy sector' includes a br oad variety of technolog ies and industries with 
distinct characteristics regarding the research in tensity needed for a patent and the propensity 
to patent. In addition, the tendency to pa tent may also differ across countries. As a 
consequence, the average R&D intensity pe r patent may differ considerably across 
technologies. Companies may also decide to cla ssify or label patents in a way that makes it 
difficult to detect them with the simplified patent assessment applied in this report.  
Despite these general constraints regarding the us e of patents, they may nevertheless be used 
as a rough indicator within th e scope of this report, given that studies show a strong 
correlation between the number of energy-related patents gr anted and the energy R&D 
investments (Margolis and Kamm en, 1999; Johnstone et al., 2008).14 However, it needs to be 
mentioned that within the present report the pate nt-based approach could not be exploited in 
full. For the above-mentioned reas ons, this would have required an in-depth assessment of the 
                                                 
13 The outputs of research are manifold, ranging from the better understanding of presently used 
techniques to finding new technologies and attracting public research funding (see overview table in Ernst, H., 1998, p.3). The use of patents for measuring R&D outputs may thus fall short of the 
complexity of the motivations for research, but can nevertheless be used as a suitable indicator 
(Griliches et al., 1986; Griliches, 1990). Howeve r, Ernst (1998) shows that research does not 
necessarily lead to more patents, but to patents of higher quality.  
14 Popp (2005) shows that patents are a suitable mean for obtaining R&D activity in highly disaggregated 
forms. 
 
EN 17   EN contents of each patent instead  of using a search by keyword and the inclusion of patent 
applications that were ha nded in by subsidiaries.  
Additional information has been derived from a detailed database of EU-FP6 projects and was 
used for cross-checking the R&D investment of selected comp anies in e.g. CCS and H2/FC. 
From this, the contribution of a company with in a certain technological field could be 
deducted by summing up the company's contribu tion in all projects within a certain area. 
These figures were only used for verifying that th e results of the other ap proaches lie above it 
– if that had not been the case, the esti mations would have had to be revisited. 
3.2.1.3.  Illustration of the approach 
In the following, the methodology applied in this re port shall be illustrated. The 'wind energy' 
sector is a representative example for an ar ea in which the approach allows a relatively 
accurate analysis.  
Table 1 shows a selection of EU-based indus tries that are considered of outstanding 
importance in the area of wind energy. For thes e industries, the R&D investment has been 
extracted from the EU Industrial R&D Investme nt Scoreboard and ot her sources. A first 
limitation of the analysis is due to the fact that some important companies are missing, such 
as some large electric utilit ies that carry out wind energy R&D, even though one may safely 
assume that much of the innovation is carri ed out by the component suppliers that are 
included. A crucial step lies in the breakdow n of the R&D budgets and the allocation of 
contributions to the different t echnologies, as described in de tail for the cases of Acciona, 
Alstom, Dong Energy, EDF, Iberdrola and Siemens.  
 
EN 18  Company name Total R&D 
investment 
2007 (€m) Assumed 
share of 
R&D to 
wind Assumed 
R&D 
investment 
in wind 
(€m) Assumptions 
 Sources 
 
Acciona Energy 39.02 24% ~9.5 Acciona states that €16.3m of its R&D budget (i.e. 42%) is dedicated to energy R&D. 
The company is largely active in wind energy and solar (PV and CSP), but also in H2 
and bioenergy (solid biomass and biofuels).  Given the importance of wind energy, we 
assume that slightly more than half of the energy-related R&D budget is allocated to 
wind energy, i.e. €9-10m.  EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard for data on total R&D 
investment; assumptions based on 
Acciona's annual and corporate social 
responsibility reports. Furthermore, 
through direct contact the assumed R&D 
break-down could be improved. 
Alstom 561 4.5% ~25 Alstom is a major component  supplier for power generation and transport. R&D 
activities in the power sect or are carried out through the two sub-sectors "Power 
Systems" (mainly CCS and gas/steam turbines R&D) and "Power Services". Wind 
energy would classify under the first. An an alysis based on the number of researcher, 
the split of turnover between the various fi nancial sectors and literature (ZEP, 2008a), 
leads to an estimated R&D i nvestments within "Power Systems" in the order of €200-
220m. Out of this, some share would be dedicated to wind energy. As a rough guess, 
we assume that some 10% of the 'Power  Systems R&D' would go to wind energy 
research (ca. €20m). Moreover, the Alst om Group acquired 100% of Ecotècnia in 
2007, a Spanish wind turbine company. From a newspaper article (El Pais) we know 
that Ecotecnia will invest around 2% of its turnover in R&D (ca. €5m). In total, we 
thus assume that some €25m are dedicated to wind energy R&D. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard for data on total R&D 
investment; assumptions based on 
Alstom's annual and corporate social 
responsibility reports, their websites, 
patent analysis, newspaper and expert 
guesses. Furthermore, through direct 
contact the assumed R&D break-down 
could be improved. However, figures are 
not official figures from the company but 
remain own estimates. 
Clipper 
Windpower  6.89 100% 6.9 
Mostly active in wind energy, thus 100% of R&D is assumed to go to wind. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard 
Dong Energy 64.24 20% ~13 Wind energy is central for Dong Energy. Th e company states that  it currently accounts 
for the largest proportion of wind energy in Europe and plans massive new 
investments. However, coal  and other renewables also play a key role for Dong 
Energy: the company is very active in CCS  (see e.g. Castor FP6 project) and second 
generation biofuels (e.g. from straw). Furthe rmore, we know that Dong Energy intends 
to invest around DKK350m (€46.8m) in R& D of sustainable energy, including 
renewables and CCS. On this basis, we r oughly assume that 1/5 of Dong Energy's 
R&D budget is allocated to wind.  EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard for data on total R&D 
investment; assumptions based on Dong's 
annual and corporate social responsibility 
reports and expert estimates. 
 
 
EN 19  Company name Total R&D 
investment 
2007 (€m) Assumed 
share of 
R&D to 
wind Assumed 
R&D 
investment 
in wind 
(€m) Assumptions 
 Sources 
 
EDF 375 0.8% ~3 Out of the total R&D budget, EDF invested  around €100m on 'environment', including 
energy eco-efficiency, research into Renewable Energies, local impact of climate 
change, and other studies furthering knowledg e of environmental issues. Out of this, 
renewables (excl. hydro) account for 9%  according to official data. Based on 
information of EDF's R&D efforts on PV, we estimate that around €5.5m are dedicated 
to R&D on wind energy, biomass, geothermal and ocean power. Given the 
perspectives of wind energy within EDF, we assume that half of that is dedicated to 
wind energy research. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard for data on total R&D 
investment; assumpti ons based on EdF's 
annual and corporate social responsibility 
reports, their websites and expert guesses. 
Furthermore, through direct contact the 
assumed R&D break-down could be 
improved. However, figures are not 
official figures from the company but 
remain own estimates. 
Enercon n.a. n.a. ~17.5 Enercon's turnover was in the order of €2.4bn in 2007. According to their website, 
Enercon employs around 10000 people and over 130 engineers in R&D. If we assume 
R&D expenses per R&D employees to be  in the typical range of €120000-150000 per 
R&D staff, Enercon's R&D expenses were in  the order of €15.6m to €19.5m spent in 
R&D, with the central value taken for this  report. However, this would mean that 
Enercon's R&D intensity remains low at less than 1% of the turnover. For this reason, 
the above estimate may well  be an under-estimation. Website 
Internet pages 
 
Gamesa 30.91 100% 30.9 Mostly active in wind energy, thus 100% of R&D is assumed to go to wind. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard 
 
EN 20  Company name Total R&D 
investment 
2007 (€m) Assumed 
share of 
R&D to 
wind Assumed 
R&D 
investment 
in wind 
(€m) Assumptions 
 Sources 
 
Iberdrola 65 6.2% ~4 Iberdrola spent €65m in R&D in 2007. According to their website, Iberdrola plans to 
invest €225m in R&D over the period 2008- 2010 (i.e. €75m per year) on the three 
following activities: 1) Renewables (€70m) and deregulated power business (€70m); 2) 
Regulated business (€50m); 3) Informa tion technology and other areas (€35m). 
Considering that on the one hand, wind power plays an important role in Iberdrola's 
renewables portfolio but on the other hand, Ib erdrola is also active in other renewable 
energy sources (such as solar thermal and bi omass) and on grid inte gration, we assume 
that 20% of the €70m announced for Renewable Energy research would go to wind 
energy over the 3 years (i.e. €4.7m per year). We also know that the R&D figures 
announced for 2008 (and beyond) imply a 15% increase to the 2007 figures. If we thus 
assume that the 2007 wind energy R&D inve stment is 15% below the above-estimated 
figure for 2008, the R&D investment on wind energy in 2007 can be estimated to be 
some €4m.  EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard for data on total R&D 
investment; assumptions based on 
Iberdrola Press Release 24/03/2008 and 
official reports. Furthermore, through 
direct contact the assumed R&D break-
down could be improved. However, 
figures are not official figures from the 
company but remain own estimates.\ 
 
Nordex 17.24 100% 17.2 Mostly active in wind energy, thus 100% of R&D is assumed to go to wind. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard 
REPower Systems 13.38 100% 13.4 Mostly active in wind energy, thus 100% of R&D is assumed to go to wind. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard 
Siemens 3366 0.6% ~21 For SIEMENS, several approaches have been combined:  
Firstly, SIEMENS annual report states that 15% (i.e. €505m) of its total R&D 
investments are dedicated to energy research. The energy sector is made up of 6 
divisions, one of which is the renewabl e energy division, including wind energy. 
Knowing the total staff by division and for wi nd, the relation of total staff to total R&D 
personnel (ca. 5.5%-9% across the various s ectors) and the R&D investments per R&D 
employee (€132000 per R&D employee in the energy sector), we  estimate that R&D 
investments dedicated to wind research may be some in the range of €16-27m (i.e. 0.5-
0.8% of total R&D). 
Secondly, a research in patent databases showed that 0.5% (depatisnet) and 1.2% 
(USPTO) of all SIEMENS patent applicati ons in 2004-2006 were associated with wind 
energy.  EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard for data on total R&D 
investment; assumptions  based on various 
inputs, such as annual and corporate 
social responsibility reports and work 
done by Naneva and Paschos (2008); 
press releases; patent application 
assessment. 
 
 
 
EN 21  Company name Total R&D 
investment 
2007 (€m) Assumed 
share of 
R&D to 
wind Assumed 
R&D 
investment 
in wind 
(€m) Assumptions 
 Sources 
 
Thirdly, Siemens maintains wind turbine R&D centres in Denmark, Germany, the 
Netherlands, UK and the USA. For the newl y opened USA centre we know that they 
aim at a staff number of some 50 researcher s, but currently only have 12. Assuming a 
similar number of researchers for all centre s would give a total number of employees 
of 212 people. With an average investment of €132000 per researcher, this would mean 
an R&D investment of €28m. 
From the approaches above, we deduce that  the share of R&D dedicated to wind may 
be in the order of 0.5-0.8%. We use 0.6% as best guess, yet wi th high uncertainties. 
Vergnet n.a. 100% ~3.7 In 2007, Vergnet's turnover was €37m out of which 10% were dedicated to R&D 
activities, m eaning that around €3.7m were spent in R&D for the same year. Moreover, 
Vergnet had around 20 engineers in R&D in 2007 . Assuming that €150000 is spent 
per R&D employee, on average, this would mean that their R&D expenses account for 
€3m which is in line with the €3.7m. We assume that most of this investment was 
allocated to wind energy. Vergnet website 
Oseo website (08/2008) 
 
Vestas Wind 127 100% 127 Mostly active in wind energy, thus 100% of R&D is assumed to go to wind. EU Industrial R&D Investment 
Scoreboard 
Total   ~292     
Table 1: Example of the approach, illu strated for the wind energy sector 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on data on total R& D investments from the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (except for Enercon an d 
Vergnet). Assumptions on the share of total R&D investments dedicated to research on wind energy are based on a variety of sour ces, 
including companies' annual reports and corporate social responsibility report as well as websites and direct contact where pos sible.  
Note: Data on the R&D investment in wind energy are own estimat es and are related to uncertain ties. They do not present any off icial 
company figure.  
 
EN 22   EN 3.2.2.  BERD (Business enterprise sector's R&D expenditure) 
In order to complement the company-based in formation obtained through the Industrial R&D 
Investment Scoreboard, the Eurostat/OECD BERD (Business enterprise sector's R&D 
expenditure) database has been searched fo r data on corporate R&D investment. BERD 
contains figures on the busines s enterprise sector's expend iture in R&D, broken down by 
different socio-economic objectives follo wing the NACE (Rev 1.1) classification. 
Furthermore, the expenditures are broken dow n by sources of funds, disaggregated into 
business enterprise sector (BES ), government sector (GOV), hi gher education sector (HES), 
private non-profit sector (PNO) and abroad (ABR). 
Within the present report, the energy-related BE RD data have been assessed for funds from 
all sources and those funds that stem from th e business enterprise sector BES. The latter 
would be more comparable to the central approa ch of this report, which assesses the corporate 
R&D investments that stem from the companies'  funds (to the extent that the publicly funded 
parts can be identified and subtracted, see footnote 10). 
Unfortunately, the NACE classification doe s not provide the technological breakdown 
required for this report. For this reason, the BERD results on the corporate energy-related 
R&D expenditures could only be used for comparison with the aggregate figure of the 
analysis based on the method described in sect ion 2.1.1. Table 2 shows those sectors that are 
considered as relevant in th e context of energy-related R&D as assessed in this report15. 
The BERD database often misses data for severa l EU Member States at  the high level of 
detail that is required for this work, whic h makes it difficult to obtain a comprehensive 
picture. In a number of cases, en tries by category are not available for a certain country in the 
last year, but for some years before. These ga ps for 2007 were filled with the latest data 
available back to the year 2003. Even though this  approach leads to an error, the mistake 
made seems to be smaller than assuming no R&D expenditure for those countries where entries are missing.  
                                                
 
15 Note that the NACE classes chosen in the presen t assessment comprise more categories than only 
classical energy sectors (see the selection in Kalo udis and Pedersen, 2008). A broader approach was 
chosen in order to also capture companies that are active in the manufacturing of energy components, 
and thus enhance the comparability with the central approach of this study. 
 
EN 23   EN  
 Funds from 
all sectors 
(€ million) BES funds 
only (€ million) 
Mining and quarrying  584 191 
Manufacture of coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel  865 288 
Manufacture of engines & turbines, except aircraft, 
vehicle & cycle engines  382 58 
Manufacture of electric motors, generators and transformers  554 209 
Manufacture of electricity distribution and control apparatus  1029 513 
Manufacture of insulated wire and cable  129 49 
Manufacture of accumulators, prim ary cells and primary batteries  74 37 
Manufacture of lighting equi pment and electric lamps  416 50 
Manufacture of electrical equipment n.e.c.  969 365 
Electricity, gas and water supply  702 434 
Total Energy-Related BERD 5703 2194 
Total EU27 Business and Ente rprise R&D expenditure  144089 105754 
Share of energy-related over total BERD 4.0% 2.1% 
Table 2: Business and enterprise R&D expenditures  in energy-related fields in 2007 aggregated 
for EU Member States 
Source: BERD (data retrieved in January 2009) 
Note: Data gaps in 2007 have been filled with entries for 2003 -2006 where necessary. Less data is available for 
'funds by BES' than for 'all funds', thus distorting the aggregates.  
3.2.3.  Other research projects 
Two research projects were used as inform ation sources on industrial energy R&D spending, 
namely the ERMINE project16 and the SRS NET & EEE project17. IPTS accessed the reports 
and databases and contacted the project  coordinators for clarifications. 
The SRS NET & EEE  (Scientific Reference System on new energy technologies, energy end-
use efficiency and energy RTD) project aimed at enhancing the ava ilability, quality and 
completeness of data on new energy technolo gies and energy effici ency and at producing 
unbiased, validated, organised a nd scientifically agreed tech nical and economic information 
on renewable and efficient technolog ies. As part of this work, an extensive database on R&D 
expenditure was constructed. 
The database contains public  and private energy R&D expenditure up to the year 2005. 
Private R&D data are taken from several sour ces such as specific studies, R&D programmes, 
activity reports, etc. and are available for wi nd energy, CCS, H2/FC a nd nuclear (fission). 
Note that PV is included within the "solar energy" technology. 
The approach used is presented in the "R&T D Countries' Reference Report" (SRS project, 
2007), which includes the name of the sources and their quality level for every Member State. 
Unfortunately, data on private R&D spending are only available for a limited number of EU 
countries. In some cases, this lack of data unfor tunately means that countries that are central 
for a given technological field are not covered. 
                                                 
16 http://www.ermine. cesiricerca.it/  
17 http://srs.epu.ntua.gr/  
 
EN 24   EN For public R&D investment, the SRS project primarily used th e IEA database in conjunction 
with other sources such as Euro stat or various studies. See van Beeck et al. (2009) for a more 
detailed overview of the project results and data  gathering procedures. 
Given the difficulties encountered in collecting information on private R&D efforts, one of 
the project's conclusions is that "The data collection on ERTD expenditures in Europe would 
be facilitated with the appoint ment of a European institution that ensures a systematic 
collection of validated and disaggregated data on public and private ERTD expenditures. For 
a comprehensive database, it is vital that such an institution has e nough power and prestige, 
in particular to urge companies to provide data on private expenditures."  
As part of the ERMINE  (Electricity Research Road Map in  Europe) project, a database on 
R&D expenditure in the EU electricity sect or has been created based on various prime 
resources and direct contact to companies (de Nigris et al., 2008) . A central part of the data 
collection consisted of questionnaires sent to the main actors of the EU electricity sector 
(government institutes, universitie s, research centres, electric ity companies, etc.). Public 
energy R&D budgets are primarily taken from the IEA database (but calculated in euro 2004 
which may explain some differences to the resu lts of the SRS database). The ERMINE data 
have been used for verifying the order of magnitude of the results of the present work to the 
extent possible. 
3.2.4.  New Energy Finance 
New Energy Finance18 offers an on-line desktop with  information on investors and 
transactions in clean energy. A co re part of this service is based on an extensive database 
containing information on financial transactions, such as private equity and venture capital. 
Unfortunately, the database does not cont ain explicit data on R&D expenditure. 
However, New Energy Finance recently publishe d an analysis on R&D investments in clean 
energies as part of the publication 'Global Tr ends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008' 
(Boyle et al., 2008) and as a Research Note (N ew Energy Finance, 2008). The data are based 
on the information of 47 companies, mainly ex tracted from their annual and corporate social 
responsibility reports. Similarly to  the main approach used in this report (s ee section 2.1.1), 
the R&D expenditures are allocated to the country  that hosts the company's headquarters. To 
the extent possible, the publicly financed part of the corporate R&D investments is subtracted 
(similar to the EU Scoreboard). 
According to these studies, global R&D spe nding into renewable energy technologies and 
energy efficiency has increased slightly from  2006 to 2007 to reach a total of US$16.9 billion. 
Of this, corporate R&D accounted for US$9.8 billion and public R&D for US$7.1 billion 
(Boyle et al., 2008). In 2006, the EMEA (Europe , Middle East and Afri ca) region accounted 
for US$4.8 billion of corporate re search in clean energy technol ogies in 2006, with the largest 
part coming from energy and utility companies followed by technology and automobile sectors (New Energy Finance, 2008). 
Note that the assessment done by New Energy Fina nce defines the category 'clean energy' in a 
much broader way than how this report defines 'SET-Plan priority technologies'. The category 
'clean energy' also includes energy efficiency R&D efforts as well as co-generation, but does 
                                                
 
18 www.newenergyfinance.com  
 
EN 25   EN not include nuclear. Unfortunately, no furthe r breakdown of clean energy research into 
individual technologies has been available. Ho wever, the clean energy investments that were 
provided for a number of large companies have b een used as one input for the allocation of 
those companies' R&D budgets to individual t echnologies in the presen t report (see section 
2.1.1) and for comparing the order of magnitude  of the results of the present report. 
3.2.5.  Methodological outlook 
The uncertainties related to the various approach es pursued in this re port are described above. 
In the following, suggestions are made on ho w to further enhance the accuracy of the 
outcome: 
• Firstly, and despite the methodological proble ms related to linking R&D output to -input 
indicators (see above with further references), an in-depth analysis of companies' patent 
applications may provide useful additional – ye t not sufficient – information from which to 
derive an indication of  their R&D directions. However, such an assessment would also 
need to pay attention to systematic problems su ch as the fact that some sectors are more 
"patent-intensive" than others  and that the specific R&D co sts per patent differ between 
technologies.  
• Secondly, a company's current (and announced future) positioning across various business-
fields may provide some insight s into the areas of research that could be regarded as 
strategic. The Compustat database, a databa se of 88000 companies worldwide maintained 
by Standard and Poor's, may be of use here.  
• Finally and probably most importantly, a systematic and ongoing direct contact to 
companies and associations beyond the scope of this report would be needed for validating 
the assumptions used.  
 
EN 26   EN 3.3. Member States' public R&D investments 
Unlike the estimation of corporate R&D invest ments in energy technologies, the assessment 
of public energy R&D investments in Member  States is primarily based on available 
supranational datasets, which has been enhanced  by the use of some national data which result 
from the direct contact with EU Member States . The following two datasets have been used as 
the principal starting points: the Eurostat GB AORD and the IEA RD&D statistics. They will 
be described in more detail in the following. 
The Eurostat GERD (Gross Domestic  Expenditure on R&D) database19, which contains R&D 
expenditure by R&D performers, could not be used as its breakdown does not provide the 
level of detail on different energy te chnologies required for this report. 
3.3.1.  GBAORD (Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays on R&D) 
Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays on R&D are all appropriations allocated to 
R&D in central government or fede ral budgets. It is also recomme nded that provincial or state 
government should be included when its contribu tion is significant, wh ile local government 
funds should be excluded (OECD, 2002). Data are collected from government R&D funders 
and maintained by Eurostat and the OECD and follows the NABS (Nomenclature for the Analysis and Comparison of Scientific Programmes and Budgets) classification.  
Socio-economic objective 5 'Production, distribution and rational utilisation of energy' is the 
most relevant main category fo r the present report. It covers  research into the production, 
storage, transportation, distribut ion and rational use of all form s of energy. It also includes 
research on processes designed to increas e the efficiency of energy production and 
distribution, and the study of energy conservation. 
For this report, data for 2007 have been used mo stly. Due to major data gaps that would have 
hampered a comprehensive analysis at the EU-27 level, a simple gap filling procedure has been applied using data from the latest availabl e years back to the year  2003. This is noted in 
detail in the notes below the figures pr esenting the results of this analysis.  
The 4-digit level of detail provided by the GB AORD database can be considered as accurate 
enough for the objectives of this  report (see Table 3). Unfortuna tely, disaggregated data on 
GBAORD energy subgroups were only availa ble for the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, 
Greece, Spain, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia and the UK
20. This means that for 
some of the major energy R&D funding Member St ates such as France or Italy no data is 
available at this disaggregated  level, inhibiting an aggregat ed figure on the EU-27 Member 
States' public R&D investment  by technology (see Figure 6).  
                                                 
19 GERD is maintained by Eurostat/OECD on the basis of data collected from all R&D performers. It has 
a sectoral breakdown (BES: business and enterprise, GOV: government, HES: higher education; PNP: 
private non-p rofit).  
20 In the case of IE and MT the reported values are zero. 
 
EN 27   EN SUBSECTORS OF PRODUCTION , DISTRIBUTION AND RATIONAL UTILISATION OF ENERGY " (CATEGORY 5) 
GBAORD 
code GBAORD term Term used in this analysis 
500 General research on production, distribution, and rational 
utilization of energy General research on energy 
501 Fossil fuels and their derivatives Fossil Fuels 
502 Nuclear fission Nuclear fission 
503 Radioactive waste management including 
decommissioning with regard to fuel/energy Radioactive waste 
504 Nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion 
505 Renewable energy sources RES 
 * 5051 Solar thermal and photovoltaic energy Solar 
 * 5052 Geothermal energy Geothermal 
 * 5053 Water, wind and wave energy Water, wind & wave 
 * 5054 Research into biomass conversion (particularly into the 
areas of pyrolysis, gasifica tion, extraction and enzyme 
processing); research on th e processing of waste from 
industry, agriculture and the domestic sector with a view 
to energy Biomass 
506 Rational utilization of energy Rational utilisation 
509 Other research on production, distribution and rational 
utilization of energy Other 
Table 3: Classification of en ergy-relevant sectors in GBAORD 
Source: GBAORD 
0100200300400500600700800
FR DE IT ES NL SE FI DK BE HU UK AT CZ€ million
Production, distribution and rational util.of energy (main category 5, no further breakdown available)
Rational utilisation of energy
Renewables
Nuclear fusion
Radioactive waste management
Nuclear fission
Fossil Fuels
Other energy subsectors
General research on energy 
Figure 6: Distribution of energy-related R& D budgets of EU Member States, 2007 
Source: GBAORD (data retrieved fr om Eurostat in January 2009) 
Note: No data for BG. Gap-filling was applied by using 2006 data for CZ, DE, ES (all sectors) and UK (500, 
501, 503, 505, 506); 2005 data for NL (501) and HU (category 5); 2004 data for SI (all sectors), UK (502, 509) 
and NL (509). 
 
EN 28   EN 3.3.2.  IEA RD&D statistics 
The International Energy Agency (IEA) host s a publicly accessible database on energy 
RD&D budgets from the IEA member countries.  Data is collected from government RD&D 
funders.  
Unlike the GBAORD, the IEA database covers  demonstration activities on top of pure 
research and development activi ties. 'Demonstration projects' ar e of large scale, but are not 
expected to operate on a commercial basi s (IEA, 2008). In practic e, however, most IEA 
member countries do either not provide data on funds directed towards demonstration, or do 
not display them separately. As a consequence, the aggregated demonstration activities of EU 
Member States that are explicitly specified us su ch in the IEA database amount to some 9% of 
total R&D activities of these c ountries in 2007 (gap-filled), ye t with important differences 
across technologies as shown in Figure 3 (see also  section 3.1 for a further clarification of the 
scope covered by the present assessment). For the purpose of this report, we thus consider the IEA data as mainly related to R&D investments. 
The breakdown of the IEA R&D data follo ws a scientific/technical nomenclature
21. The level 
of detail more or less matche s the requirements of this report . Furthermore, most countries 
provided data at this high level of detail, whic h renders the IEA database central for this work. 
Only 19 of the 27 EU Member States are IEA members. Consequently, the database 
systematically contains no data for the other co untries, i.e. for: Bulg aria, Cyprus, Estonia, 
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, and Slove nia. Nevertheless, the aggregated R&D budgets 
of the Member States covered by the IEA databa se account for almost 99% of the overall EU-
27 energy budget according to GBAORD data, thus limiting the errors incurred by a lack of 
data in the missing EU Member States, notwithst anding that the contribut ions of the excluded 
Member States may be higher for individual technologies.  
The latest available data are for the year 2007. Similar to the procedure applied for GBAORD 
data, some straight forward 'gap filling' process was applied for the IEA data. For entries missing for 2007, the value from the latest availa ble year was applied down to the year 2003; 
data older than 2003 were not considered. Th is means that IEA data for Greece (latest 
available year at detailed level: 2002), and L uxembourg (2000) were neglected. In the case of 
Finland and the Netherlands, mainly 2006 data have been used. For the Czech Republic and 
the Slovak Republic 2003 data were  used. This approach slightly  distorts the overall picture 
(see section 4.3), but is nevertheless  justified given that the main interest of this report lies on 
the aggregated EU figures. Stemming from th e consultation process with Member States, it 
was decided to use national figures for the year 2007 in the case of France, the UK, Germany, 
Austria and Belgium
22, either replacing the IEA figures or complementing them. In the case 
of Ireland, it was decided to use official nati onal figures for the year 2006 as proxy for the 
R&D investments in the year 2007 instead of using the data from the IEA RD&D statistics. 
                                                 
21 See also European Commission (200 5) for a comparison of energy R&D statistics in the European 
Union. 
22 Note that in Belgium, nuclear-related R&D (fusion and fission) is under federal responsibility namely 
through the DG Energy by the FPS Economy, wh ile administration of non-nuclear-related R&D 
activities is the main responsibility of the regional governments. The non-nuclear energy R&D figures 
thus are the aggregate of the regional funds.  
 
EN 29   EN In addition to the 2007 figures , an average of the national R&D investments over the time 
span 2002-2007 is displayed in most of the char ts shown in the report. This supplementary 
information prevents the risk of giving too much  weight to data mavericks and one-off events 
while at the same time providi ng a longer term perspective. 
3.4. EU FP6 public energy R&D investments 
European funds complement the Member States' public R&D support. The Research 
Framework Programme and EURATOM Framewor k Programme are the key source of R&D 
financing on energy technologies . Other EU funding schemes such as the Competitiveness 
and Innovation Programme with its pillar In telligent Energy Europe, the Cohesion funds, 
Trans-European Networks, etc. could either no t be assessed quantitati vely on the level of 
detail needed for this report, or were considered less relevant for research as they mainly focus on deployment. They are mentioned in box 1. 
For the purpose of this report, the expenditures
23 of the 6th Research Framework Programme 
and the EURATOM Framework Programme 2002-2006 have been analysed. As FP6 ended in 
2006, detailed data on R&D expenditures are avai lable on a project level, which allows a 
decent allocation of R&D spending to the various technology types. Such detailed data is not 
yet available for FP7, thus preventing the use of FP7-figures for an in-depth assessment. 
Nevertheless, some detail is provided on the evolution of energy-related R&D investments 
from FP6 to FP7 to allow for an assessment of future trends. The reflections on FP7 are based on the budget decisions taken so far.  
The breakdown of the FP6 investments has not been based on the budget lines (such as 
'Sustainable Energy Systems'), as this would not provide the level of detail required by the 
present work. Instead, individual projects have been allocated 'manually' to the various SET-
Plan priority technologies, which allowed es timating the total EU-funded expenditures for 
various technologies under FP6. The assessment systematically includes all projects funded 
within of the core budget  line used for energy-R &D projects (Sustainab le Energy Systems); to 
the extent possible it has been  complemented by other energy- relevant projects that are 
funded through other budget lines (e.g. 'sustainable surface transport' or 'horizontal research 
activities involving SMEs') based on various publications  (European Commission, 2004; 
2007b-e). This allocation approach is associated with (limited) uncertainty as some projects 
simultaneously address various t echnologies (e.g. projects on al ternative motor fuels comprise 
work on biofuels, H2 and natural gas; projects on integrating fluctuating renewable electricity 
sources may be allocated to renewables or to grids). In those cases, a decision was taken on to 
which technology the expenditures should be al located. Even though this process creates a 
potential source of error (see section 4.3.2) it is justified as it avoids a double-counting of the 
budget of one single project. In future work, one may go a step further and allocate fractions 
of the project budget to individu al technologies; this would neve rtheless require an in-depth 
knowledge of the contents of each project. Desp ite the uncertainties related to the present 
approach, a comparison with other sources (R ossetti di Valdalbero et al., 2007; European 
Commission, 2007b-e; Langlois D' Estainot, 2009; EPIA, 2007;  Orion Innovations, 2008; 
Filiou et al., 2009) does reveal only limited differences. 
Note that the analysis of EURATOM funds is based on budgets. Furthermore, not only 
project-related funds have been included but also the JRC funds dedicated to nuclear energy. 
                                                
 
23 The assessment is based on commitments, not payments. 
 
EN 30   EN As the EU Research Framework Programmes are of multiannual nature, while the present 
report aims at presenting the EU R&D investment s for the most recent year available, they 
had to be broken down further in order to de termine the specific budgets available for one 
single year. In order to level out  annual fluctuations in the b udget that are due to the project 
cycles, it was decided to assume an even allocati on of the total expenses to every year of the 
FP6 duration (the financially e ffective duration of FP6 was four  years). The figures shown for 
the EU public R&D investment thus relate to an average annual invest ment over the years of 
the duration of FP6. 
4. RESULTS 
4.1. Overall results 
Overall, the findings of this report indicate that already today, substantial R&D investments 
are directed towards low-carbon energy technol ogies, in particular from industry. Public 
research funding in EU Member States comple ments corporate R&D investments. However, 
the share of energy-related research in the tota l of public research remains limited for most 
Member States. 
The aggregated R&D spending towards selected non-nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies24 amounted to €2.38 billion in 2006/7, out of which €1.66 billion originate from 
corporate R&D investments in 2007, while €0.57 billion stem from public national R&D 
budgets in EU Member States in 200725 and €0.16 billion are financed through the European 
6th Research Framework Programme26 in 2006 (see Figure 7). 
69%
7%24%Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
Public EU (FP6; annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU Member
States (2007)
ca. €2.38 billion
 
Figure 7: Indicative R&D investment in non-nuclear S ET-Plan priority technologies from industry 
(2007), the public national sector (2007) and EU funds through FP6 (2006) 
Source: Corporate data result from the present analysis carried out by JRC-IPTS; public national data from 
IEA, complemented with direct information from some Member States; EU data from FP6. 
                                                 
24 Technologies included are: hydr ogen and fuel cells; wind energy; photovoltaics; carbon capture and 
storage; biofuels; smart grids and concentrating solar power. 
25 The public R&D budgets of EU Member States ar e taken from the IEA R&D statistics. They refer to 
the year 2007, but data gaps were filled with data from earlier years back to 2003. Note that the IEA 
statistics miss data for a number of EU Member States. 
26 The payment commitments under the Sixth EC Framework Programme were assumed to be evenly 
spread over the years of its duration. Note that the (annualised) energy-related R&D budget of FP7 is substantially above that of FP6.  
 
EN 31   EN This is complemented by the nuclear R&D budget , for which no single figure can be 
provided as it was not possible to narrow down R&D investments to research on generation 
IV reactors, which are the focus of the nuclear fission related activities within the SET-Plan. Nevertheless, some distinction could be made between the tota l nuclear-related budgets and a 
limited nuclear R&D budget excluding e.g. res earch on environmental protection, waste 
storage and safety considerations, which narro w down the nuclear research on plain reactor 
technologies that are consider ed to include research on ge neration IV. Following the narrow 
approach, reactor-related research investme nts may be around €0.46 billion, while the total 
nuclear fission R&D budgets incl uding research on all nuclear energy-related would exceed 
€1.2 billion. Fusion related research adds  another €0.48 billion to this figure. 
The central figure taken in the following as estimate for the total R&D investments in all 
(nuclear and non-nuclear) low-ca rbon technologies hi ghlighted by the SET-Plan therefore 
amounts to  €3.3 billion .  
4.1.1.  Corporate R&D investments 
The central approach used in this report leads to an estimate of around €1.86 billion in 2007 
of total corporate R&D investment in the low- carbon technologies cons idered (nuclear + non-
nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies).
27 This meant an increase in the order of magnitude 
of some 15% compared to the roughly estima ted R&D investment in the year 2006 (for 
limitations of this comparison see box 3). 
Corporate R&D investments are spread through out most EU Member States. Nevertheless, 
the headquarters of companies with a substan tial R&D investment in  low-carbon technologies 
are largely concentrated in a few Member St ates, namely Germany, France, UK, Denmark, 
Spain and Sweden, which together account for al most 95% of the total. Note, however, that 
this picture may be distorted by uncertainti es associated with the methodology applied.  
Germany
FranceUKDenmarkItaly
FinlandBelgiumAustria
Others
Sweden
Spain
~ €1.9 
billion
 
Figure 8: Indicative regional distribution of corporate R&D investment (2007) in SET-Plan 
priority technologies by countries that ho st the headquarters of the R&D investing 
companies 
Source: JRC-IPTS 
Note: Figures are subject to important uncertainties. The associate to countries is done at the basis of location 
of headquarters, not on the basis of location of the R&D activities.  
                                                 
27 This figure would rise to some €2.2 billion if all nuclear-related R&D efforts were included, i.e. also 
those related to radiation safety and waste management.  
 
EN 32   EN Source This report BERD New Energy 
Finance ERMINE SRS 
NET&EEE 
Sectoral 
coverage Total selected 
low-carbon technologies Business- and 
Enterprise R&D expenditure in 
energy-related 
fields Clean Energy 
R&D Investment 
including 
energy efficiency but 
excl. nuclear R&D 
investments in power 
generation (all 
technologies) All private 
energy research 
Geographical 
coverage EU EU EMEA EU EU 
Corporate R&D 
(€ billion) 1.9 5.7 (2.2 if only 
funds by BES) 3.5 3.9 2 
Table 4: Comparison of resul ts across various studies 
Despite the uncertainties associated with the approach, a comparison to  the results of other 
studies (see Table 4) supports the approximate size of this outcome while at the same time it confirms that this figure should be considered as rough estimate only. 
• According to the New Energy Finance assess ment, the corporate investment in clean 
energy technologies amounted to around US$4.8 billion (ca. €3.5 billion) in 2006 in the EMEA region. A large part of the discrepanc y with the findings of this report may be 
explained by the broader definition of cl ean energies applied, which comprises 
substantially more technologies than the few considered in th is report such as 
improvements of energy efficiency, even if nuclear technologies have not been included. 
The difference in the geographical boundaries ma y be considered as of limited importance. 
• The ERMINE project found for 2004 an overall R&D investment of the EU electricity 
supply industry of €1 billion and €7.5 billion of ot her industries. A large part of this (€3.9 
billion) was attributed to R&D in the power generation sector, yet co mprising all and not 
only low-carbon technologies.  
• According to the SRS project results, indus try spent around €2 billion in energy research. 
Note that the latter database contains impor tant gaps and may thus be an underestimation. 
• According to the Eurostat BERD database, the business and enterprise R&D expenditures 
for various energy-related sectors amounted to €5.7 billion in 2007 (gap filled; see Table 
2). Note that this aggregated figure likely constitutes a low estimate as data for some Member States are missing at the high level of detail. In order to make these figures more 
comparable to the central approach used within  this report, only the R&D expenditures that 
are funded by the business enterp rise sector should be comp ared. These would amount to 
around €2.2 billion for energy-related sector s. However, this is most probably an 
underestimation, given that the data availabi lity is worse for data broken down by source 
of funds than for expenditures financed from all funds. If, therefore, we assumed that the 
share of energy-related R&D expenditures within total BERD (4%) is similar for 
investments from all funders and those from the business sector only, the business sector 
funded energy-related R&D expenditures woul d amount to €4.2 billion. The BERD figure 
would then more or less confir m the order of magnitude of th e results obtained, bearing in 
mind the data problems and the fact that the technologies cons idered in the present report 
are a small but innovation-intensive subset of all energy technologies. Furthermore, unlike 
the EU R&D Investment Scoreboard, the BE RD figures relate to R&D investments 
performed by business on a certain territory, while disregarding the geographic location of 
the headquarters. 
 
EN 33   EN 4.1.2.  Public R&D investments by Member States 
Overall spending on energy R&D  
The total energy-related public R&D spending in the EU Member States amounted to €2.56 
billion or €2.52 billion in 2007 according to th e GBAORD and IEA databases, respectively. 
This amount is less than half of the energy- related public R&D budgets in 1985 due to a sharp 
decline in the 1980s and early 1990s  in particular of nuclear energy R&D, but is well above 
the low spending of the late 1990s /early 2000s (see Figure 10).  
Note that the IEA RD&D statistics and the en ergy-related parts of the GBAORD in theory 
cannot directly be compared as the IEA da tabase includes demonstration on top of R&D 
activities. In prac tice, however, budgets for demonstratio n activities are provided only by few 
IEA members, amounting to about 9% of the total on the aggregated EU level (see section 3.1). 
Table 5 shows the overall energy-related R&D budget by EU Member State according to the 
GBAORD and IEA Member States. It beco mes obvious that publi c energy R&D largely 
concentrates on a few Member States. The aggregated energy R&D budgets of France, 
Germany and Italy account for ar ound 65% of the aggregated budget from all Member States 
according to both the GBAORD and the (modified ) IEA databases. Relative to GDP, France 
and Finland are spending the highest energy R&D investments among the EU Member States 
(based on GBAORD data). In general, however, the differences among EU Member States are 
of limited nature. Compared with the Japa nese public energy R&D budget appropriations 
(0.11% of GDP in 2006), the aggregated EU figure (0.02% of GDP in 2007, almost 
unchanged from 2006) reveals an enormous differe nce in the importance at tributed to energy 
R&D. 
Setting the energy-related part of the GBAORD  in relation to the overall GBAORD can 
provide an indication of the impor tance of energy in a country's  overall research budgets. The 
result is presented in Figure 9. On an EU aggregated level, th e share of energy R&D in total 
R&D budgets was 2.9% in 2007, with only few Memb er States showing a substantially higher 
share (such as Hungary). This compares to a sh are of 15.2% in Japan and of 1.1% in the USA. 
Note, however, that a comparison between indi vidual EU Member States and Japan or the 
USA is distorted due to the fact that th e budgets from the EU Research Framework 
Programme are not included, which can play an important role e .g. for nuclear fusion. 
 
EN 34   EN 0246810121416
HU
FR
FI
IT
LV
SE
RO
LT
ES
NL
DE
DK
CZ
EE
GR
BE
ATPT
PL
SI
LU
UK
CY
SK
IE
MT
EU27
US
JPPercentage of total GOV budget R&D2.9
(2007)4
(1990)9.4
(1985) *
**11.6
(1982)*
 
Figure 9: Share of energy-related R&D funding (i.e. production, distri bution and rational 
utilisation of energy) in the overall public R&D funding in select ed EU Member States, 
Japan and the USA (2007)  
Source: GBAORD  
Table 5 reveals differences in the aggregated  EU totals between the GBAORD and the IEA 
databases in the order of €40 million, despite th e fact that one might have assumed the IEA 
figures to be larger due to their (partial) incl usion of demonstration ac tivities on top of R&D. 
Parts of the difference may be e xplained by the distinct regiona l coverage of the databases, 
which stems from the fact that not all EU  Member States are IEA members. Other 
dissimilarities relate to the sectoral breakdowns with GBAORD following the NABS 
nomenclature and the IEA a scie ntific/technological structure28. With regard to individual 
countries, important discrepancie s between the two databases can be observed in particular for 
Spain and the UK, but also for Denmark, Germ any and France. From a methodological point 
of view, Table 5 illustrates the differences ma de by the gap-filling procedure explained in 
section 2.2 and discussed further in section 4.3.2. In this report, however , a number of gaps 
could be filled through direct contact with the Member States, thus reducing the need for gap 
filling.  
                                                 
28 Moreover, even though both database ask for provincial (e.g. Länder) R&D spending to be included 
when significant, there may be differences in the ex tent to which this data is being submitted by the 
Member States. For many countries, this data is not in the data submitted to the IEA (see also section 
2.2.2). 
 
EN 35   EN GBAORD for "Production, 
distribution and rational 
utilization of energy" (2007)1) 2) Public budget for energy RD&D, IEA (2007), gap-filled 3) 4) 
  € million % of EU total No gap filling; 2007 
data  
(€2007 million) Gap filling up to 
2003 & with 
national data 
( €2007 million) % of 
total Average 
2002-07 
(€ 
million) % of 
total 
Austria 31.7 1.2% 31.9 31.9 1.3% 34.1 1.6% 
Belgium 38.4 1.5% 94.3 94.3 3.7% n.a. n.a. 
Bulgaria n.a. n.a. Not IEA member 
Cyprus 0.1 0.0% Not IEA member 
Czech Rep. 20.2 0.8% n.a.  7.0 0.3% n.a. n.a. 
Denmark 47.5 1.9% 99.7 99.7 4.0% 59.3 2.8% 
Estonia 1.9 0.1% Not IEA member 
Finland 78.1 3.0% n.a.5) 102.9 4.1% 83.9 3.9% 
France 760.1 29.7% 867.2 867.2 34.4% 847.5 39.4% 
Germany 542.7 21.2% 414.4 414.4 16.4% 378.7 17.6% 
Greece 13.4 0.5% n.a. 
Hungary 34.1 1.3% 5.6 5.6 0.2% 4.4 0.2% 
Ireland 0.0 0.0% - 6) 16.3 0.6% 10.9 0.5% 
Italy 359.5 14.0% 354.5 354.5 14.1% 326.8 15.2% 
Latvia 2.7 0.1% not IEA member 
Lithuania 3.1 0.1% not IEA member 
Luxemburg 0.5 0.0% n.a. 
Malta 0.0 0.0% not IEA member 
Netherlands 118.5 4.6% n.a. 147.4 5.8% 139.2 6.5% 
Poland 8.2 0.3% n.a. 
Portugal 10.5 0.4% 2.0 2.0 0.1% 2.4 0.1% 
Romania 14.8 0.6% not IEA member 
Slovak Rep. 0.2 0.0% n.a. 
Slovenia 1.0 0.0% not IEA member 
Spain 350.0 13.7% 70.6 70.6 2.8% 59.0 2.7% 
Sweden 90.5 3.5% 87.5 87.5 3.5% 90.6 4.2% 
UK 32.6 1.3% 220.8 220.8 8.8% 116.1 5.4% 
Total EU 2560.3 100.0% 2248.5 2522.1 100% 2149.5 100% 
US (IEA data)       2616.7 104% 2363.3 110% 
JP (IEA data)       2505.8 99% 2680.8 125% 
Table 5: Total energy-related R& D budgets in EU Member States, the USA and Japan according 
to the GBAORD and IEA databases 
Source: GBAORD, IEA (based on data retrieved in  January 2009), manipulated as described below 
Notes 1) Gap-filling back to 2003, details on gap filling in the main sheet of each technology. 
2) Data on GBAORD energy for HU from 2005; Data for PT, UK and IT come from 2006. 3) Gap-filling in the IEA data is the fo llowing: 2007 for DK, HU, IT, PT, ES, SE (excl. smart grids for 2003), the 
US and Japan; 2006 for FI (excl. CS P for 2004), NL (excl. CS P for 2003); 2003 for CZ ; No or very limited data 
for SK (2003), GR (last in 2002), LU (last in 2000) and PL (no data). Note that data for the year 2007 have been 
taken directly from national sources instead of the IEA for the following Member States: AT, DE, UK, FR and 
BE.  4) No average values over the period 2002-2007 have been estimated for BE, CZ and GR due to limited time 
series data (data available for one year only). 
5) Official national data for Finland show that the total Finnish energy R&D investment increased by around 40% between 2006 and 2007 to  reach €142.8 million. As , however, no official brea kdown by technology could 
be obtained for the year 2007, the present assessment is based on data from 2006 instead. 
6) Official national figures for 2006 were used as proxy for the year 2007 (instead of using IEA data). 
 
EN 36   EN Overall, the above figures indicate that in ab solute numbers public energy-related research in 
the EU is still concentrated on relatively few Member States. The aggregated Member States 
public energy-related R&D budget saw an increas e compared to its minimum in the late 
1990s/early 2000s, but still remains far below its values from two decades ago, largely due to 
declining nuclear energy R&D funds. Despite th e renewed increase in recent years, the share 
of the EU's total budget dedicated to energy-rela ted research (yet excluding the funds of the 
EC through e.g. the Framework Programmes) wa s limited (2.9%) and well below its share in 
the early 1980s (ar ound 12%) or 1990 (4%). 
R&D spending in SET-Plan priority technologies  
Despite an overall decreasing energy research budget over the past two decades (with a slight 
uptake in more recent years, see Figure 10), investments in non-nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies  have been more or less stable throughout  the 1990s with an increase afterwards. 
In 2007, Member States invested around €570 m illion in R&D related to the non-nuclear 
SET-Plan priority technologies , some 35% of their total public non-nuclear energy R&D 
budgets. 
0100020003000400050006000
19851986
19871988198919901991
19921993199419951996
19971998199920002001200220032004200520062007Aggregated public R&D budgets
 (€2007 million)R&D to non-nuclear SET-P priority technologies
Other non-nuclear energy R&D
Nuclear energy R&D
Source data: IEA
68%32%Nuclear
fission
Nuclearfusion22%19%14%6%3% 3%
33%Energy efficiency
RES (excl. PV,
CSP, wind, biofuels)
Fossil fuels (excl.
CCS)
Other energy R&D
Electric power
conversion
Energy systemanalysis
Energy storage30%
24%14%11%8%7%6%
H2/FC
PV
Wind
Transport
biofuels
Smartgrids
CCS
CSP2007 (Gap filled)
0100020003000400050006000
19851986
19871988198919901991
19921993199419951996
19971998199920002001200220032004200520062007Aggregated public R&D budgets
 (€2007 million)R&D to non-nuclear SET-P priority technologies
Other non-nuclear energy R&D
Nuclear energy R&D
Source data: IEA
68%32%Nuclear
fission
Nuclearfusion22%19%14%6%3% 3%
33%Energy efficiency
RES (excl. PV,
CSP, wind, biofuels)
Fossil fuels (excl.
CCS)
Other energy R&D
Electric power
conversion
Energy systemanalysis
Energy storage30%
24%14%11%8%7%6%
H2/FC
PV
Wind
Transport
biofuels
Smartgrids
CCS
CSP2007 (Gap filled)
 
Figure 10: Trends in the aggregated public ener gy R&D funding of EU M ember States (1985-2007; 
excluding EU funds) and detailed breakdown for the year 2007 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA data (retrieved in Janua ry 2009),gap filled and complemented by official 
national data for some Member States 
Note: The 2007 figures include the filling of data gaps with data from back to 2003. Note that no modification 
was undertaken to e.g. account for differences related to the changes in the French methodology for data 
between 1990 and 2002 (see also section 4.3.2), the fact that German data do not include the new Länder prior 
to 1992 or missing data for Belgium for the years 2000-2006. For the year 2007, both national (DE, FR, UK, AT, BE) and IEA data have been considered and gaps were filled for only FI, NL and CZ. For Ireland, official 
national data for the year 2006 have been used instead of the 2007 figures from the IEA database. Only 19 of the 
27 EU Member States are IEA members, meaning that data for 8 Member States are systematically missing; for others, data for some years may be missing. 
 
EN 37   EN In 2007, France, Italy and Germany are the largest European public  investors in the selected 
non-nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies, followed by the UK, Denmark, Spain and the 
Netherlands (see Figure 11). The distribution of research spending towards the individual 
technologies, however, varies substantially ac ross the Member States , reflecting different 
constraints with regard to th e natural potential of renewabl e energy technologies, the current 
energy mix and its historical develo pments and industrial capacities.  
The EU funds through FP6 (€157 million; see sect ion 3.1.3 for more details) are in the order 
of the top investing Member State. Adding t hose funds to the aggregated Member States 
funding would bring the EU's total public R&D i nvestment to non-nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies to €728 million.  
This would put the EU ahead of comparable  R&D budgets in the USA (€437 million in the 
USA) and Japan (€187 million; see Figure 11), despit e the fact that both regions have slightly 
higher total energy R&D budgets (see Table 5) . Such a pure quantit ative comparison, 
however, is misleading due to the important di fferences in the way in which energy R&D is 
being carried out in the different regions.  
Public R&D spending in non-nuclear SET-P priority technologies 
1- 2007 data (gap filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
020406080100120140160180
Austria Finland Belgium SwedenNetherlands Spain Denmark UK Germany Italy France EU FP6
(avg per
year)Public R&D investmen t by technology [€2007 million]Total bioenergy minus biofuels
CO2 Capture and Storage
Transport Biofuels
Solar Thermal Power and High Temp. Apps
Photovoltaics
Wind Energy
Electricity Transm. & Distr. (Smart Grids)
H2 and Fuel cells
01002003004005006007008009001000
Japan USA EU
(MS+FP6)
12121
111
1
11
12
22
2
2
222
2
21
121
1
 
Figure 11: Aggregated public support to selected non-nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies of 
some EU Member States (and FP 6 funds), the USA and Japan  
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics, gap filled and complemented by official national data for 
some Member States as described below; FP6 
Note: The R&D investments of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Ireland and Hungary are not displayed 
as they would not be visible at the scale used in this  chart. They are nevertheless respected in the present 
assessment.A comparison between countries suffers from data gaps as the IEA database missed data for a 
number of EU Member States. Gap filling for EU applied with data from back to 2003. Older data for e.g. 
Greece and Luxembourg are not included and were dismissed. Furthermore, data on regional R&D investments 
are often not included. Also relevant energy R&D that is being carried under non-energy research programmes 
(e.g. basic research) is not included for many countries. Data are complemented by or modified according to 
national statistics in the case of Germany, France, the UK, Austria and Belgium. For Ireland, official national 
data for the year 2006 have been used instead of the 2007 figures from the IEA database.The latest available 
IEA data for the USA are for 2002 for PV and CSP. Hence, 2007 data were taken from US DOE (2008) and Curtright et al. (2008). No annual average is provided for BE due to a lack of data over the period 2002-2007 
 
EN 38   EN (only 2007 was available).For FP6, commitments have been assessed at th e project level and then annualised 
over the effective duration of FP6 as described in detail in section 3.1.3.Even though the present analysis 
focuses on transport biofuels rather than total bioenergy-related R&D, an indication of the latter is also provided in the chart. This seems necessary given that many countries provide data on bioenergy research, but 
not on the sub-category 'biofuels' even though it would be sensible to assume for a number of countries that a 
substantial part of bioenergy research is dedicated to biofuels R&D.  
Unlike the strongly focussed and coordinated energy technology policies in the USA through 
the Department of Energy (DoE) and Japan through the Ministry for Economy, Trade and 
Industry (METI), no single European programme exists for fostering low-carbon technologies 
(with the exception of fusi on related research).  
Pan-European cooperation is hampered by divers e organizational structur es in energy R&D, 
ranging from the institutional set-up to pr ogrammes and public private partnerships 
(Wiesenthal et al., 2008). Non-aligned resear ch strategies and sometimes subcritical 
capacities, the variety of national regulations an d technical specifications tend to fragment the 
market and inhibit industry inve stments in high-risk technolog ies. Even though a number of 
recent initiatives aim at improving both the science-industry link and cooperation among 
Member States, current procedures remain far aw ay from a coherent strategic priority setting 
at pan-European level that  would enable to exploit synergies in energy R&D. 
Recent initiatives such as the ERA-NETs have star ted to tackle this problem. So far, however, 
NETWATCH29 data indicate that transnational R&D co-operation in low carbon energy R&D 
has been rather limited until now. Under FP6, energy R&D re presented 7% of the whole 
ERA-NET activity30, or 5 ERA-NETs in 5 different low carbon energy areas. 22 countries 
have been involved: 19 EU Member States an d 3 associated countries, Norway being very 
active with 3 participations. In general, the EU Member States bei ng most active in ERA-
NETs stem from the group of large energy R& D investors (see Table 5). Germany and the 
Netherlands participate in all 5 co-operations , and also coordinate  all energy ERA-NETs. 
Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Spain, France and Un ited Kingdom participate in 4 of them. Italy 
is underrepresented with partic ipation in only 1 energy-rela ted ERA-NET. The new Member 
States on average participate in only in 1 ERA-NET in this field, Poland leading with 2 participations and 1 observer role. 
The fields covered by the FP6 ERA-NETs are photovoltaic solar energy (PV-ERA-NET), 
innovative energy technologies (INNER), hydroge n and fuel cells tech nology (HY-CO), clean 
energy fossil technologies (FENCO-ERA) and bi o-energy (BIOENERGY). Most of the calls 
had a clear experimental char acter and were used by the ER A-NETs to develop and test 
possible strategies of future cooperati on. Between 2006 and 2008, these five ERA-NETs 
launched 11 joint calls. The time from the start of the ERA-NETs to th e first call is about 2 
years, which seems to be a standard in all ERA-NETs, not only in energy. Future 
transnational co-operation initiativ es will therefore have to take into account a certain delay in 
the launch of first calls. All calls were funde d through a virtual pot mode, enabling countries 
and regions to apply existing national procedur es and to pay for their own participants, 
without trans-national flows of national f unding. The budget committed by these five ERA-
NETs to the 11 joint calls has been €23.3 million, equalling a mere 4 % of the total 
                                                
 
29 NETWATCH is a Central Information Platform  on Transnational R&D Programme Collaboration, 
being constructed by IPTS and contracted by DG RTD. 
30 Note that for comparison purposes, other energy related ERA-NETs such as ERA-NET Transport or 
ERA-Build are not included since in  earlier surveys of DG-RTD they  were not attributed to this 
thematic field. 
 
EN 39   EN aggregated public budget that Member States  dedicated to R&D on non-nuclear SET-Plan 
priority technologies in 200731. 
Overall, the assessment indicates that despite important steps towards an increased 
collaboration in energy researc h, the EU may not be using the full potential for innovation of 
the internal market by exploring synergies between Member  States in the development and 
deployment of new energy techno logies. This means that even  though the sum of national 
public budgets of EU Member States exceeds those of the USA and Japan, such a comparison is misleading. The USA and Japanese market si ze, investment and research capacities far 
exceed those of most Member States alone.  
Public R&D budgets from Member States directed to nuclear-related research
 amount to 
€0.59 billion for nuclear fission. If, for the purpose of this report with its focus on generation IV reactors, the parts dedicated to nuclear safe ty, environmental protection, fissile materials 
control and radiation protection
32 were not taken into consideration; the nuclear fission 
'reactor technology related' R&D budget woul d be reduced to €0.25 billion. €0.28 billion are 
invested in R&D on nuclear fusion. 
The overall aggregated Member States' pub lic spending towards SET-Plan priority 
technologies in the year 2007 amount to around  €1.1 billion (around half of which goes to 
each nuclear and non-nuclear low-carbon technol ogies) thus accounting for 43% of the total 
energy-related public R&D investments  (i.e. not only those to low-carbon technologies). 
Table 6 summarises the aggregated Member St ates public R&D support by SET-Plan priority 
technology based on GBAORD and IEA data (with and without gap-filling for the IEA data, 
indicating the importance of and risks related th is type of data treatment). For information, 
figures for Japan and the USA are also provided, based on the data from the IEA RD&D 
database. 
As in some cases Member States provided data  for a main category (e .g. bioenergy), but not 
for the subcategory selected for this report (e.g . transport biofuels), relevant main categories 
are also included in Table 6. The additional information is useful for estimating the uncertainty created by using data on the hi gh level of detail. For example, the USA 
significantly invests in bioenergy research, but, no da ta is available on biofuel-related R&D in 
the IEA database. Considering the ambitious US  targets on biofuels in general and second 
generation biofuels in particul ar (ligno-cellulosic et hanol), one may assume that substantial 
parts of the bioenergy research  budgets are dedicated to biofue ls R&D. This, however, could 
not be captured with  the available data
33. 
                                                 
31 Note that the comparison of the total amount of all energy-related ERA-NETs calls launched under FP6 
with the annual public R&D spending of Member  States towards non-nu clear SET-P priority 
technologies results in an overestimation of the perc entage dedicated to joint calls, given that the calls 
usually relate to multi-annual projects and that they were launched during the period 2006-2008. 
32 These parts are summarised in the IEA categ ory IV.1.4 'Nuclear Supporting Technology'. 
33 In Figure 11 and Figure 15 this is addressed by including also the total bioenergy R&D budgets. 
Furthermore, in Figure 11, estimates have been made for the PV and CSP R&D budgets despite this 
data not having been available. 
 
EN 40   EN  
GBAORD 2007 IEA (EU19) 2007 IEA 
R&D budget RD&D budget 
€ million € million € million USA Japan Categories 
used in this 
report Terms by GBAORD 
with gap filling 
(2003-2006) Terms by IEA 
without 
gap 
filling with gap 
filling up 
to 2003 € million € million 
Renewable 
Energy 
Sources Renewable Energy 
Sources 351 Renewable 
Energy Sources 
(cat. III) 469 557 304 128 
Wind Water, wind and wave 
energy 15 Wind (cat. III.2.) 72 81 36 2 
PV Photovoltaics 
(cat. III.1.2.) 123 136 101 2 
CSP Solar thermal and 
photovoltaic energy 125 Solar Thermal 
Power and High 
Temp. Apps. (cat. 
III.1.3.) 32 33 11 0 
Biofuels      Production of 
Transp. Biofuels 
incl. from Waste 
(cat. III.4.1.) 65 65 n.a. 5 
Bioenergy Research into biomass 
conversion... with a 
view to energy 21 Total bioenergy 
(cat. III.4) 183 245 143 15 
H2/FC n.a. n.a. H2 and fuel cells 
(cat. Group V.) 164 171 183 135 
Smart 
Grids n.a. n.a. Electricity 
transm. & distr. 
(cat. VI.2.) 33 47 35 34 
CCS n.a. n.a. Total CO2 
Capture and 
Storage ( II.3.) 36 39 71 9 
Fossil fuels Fossil fuels and their 
derivatives 33 Fossil Fuels (cat. 
II) 219 240 268 221 
Nuclear 
fission Nuclear fission 140 Nuclear fission 
(cat. IV.1.) 559 587 231 1528 
Nuclear 
fission: 
narrow 
down to 
SET-P 
technology     Nuclear fission 
(cat. IV.1.) - 
Nuclear 
Supporting 
Technology (cat. 
IV.1.4) 231 248 153 652 
Nuclear 
fusion Nuclear fusion 139 Nuclear fusion 
(cat.IV.2.) 265 278 228 94 
Table 6: Aggregated public R&D support to sel ected energy technologies in the EU, Japan and 
USA in 2007 according to GBAORD and IEA 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on data from GBAORD and IEA RD&D statistics; all data downloaded in January 
2009; data treated as described.  
Note: Data on the selected low-carbon technologies considered in this report are put in bold letters. 
Data for PV and CSP in the U.S. based on recent litera ture (Curtright, 2008; US DOE, 2008). Data are 
complemented by national statistics in the case of Germany, France, the UK, Austria and Belgium. For Ireland, 
official national data for the year 2006 have been used instead of the 2007 figures from the IEA database. 
 
EN 41   EN 4.1.3.  Energy-related R&D investments under FP6 
The most relevant budget line in FP6 for en ergy-related R&D projects was 'Sustainable 
Energy Systems' with an allocated budge t of €810 million over the period 2002-200634. In 
addition to the project funds, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre spent €72.6 
million on the priority 'Energy' over the FP6 period (JRC, 2008). It should be noted that the budget earmarked in FP7 for non-nuclear energy  activities is €2350 million, yet over a longer 
time period (2007-13). On an annual average, this  nevertheless means a s ubstantial increase.  
The scope of the present analysis goes beyond the energy projects financed under the 'core' 
energy budget line 'sustainable energy systems' as described in section 3.4. To the extent 
possible, it also includes relevant projects  funded under budget lines such as 'sustainable 
surface transport' or 'horizontal research acti vities involving SMEs', 'Aeronautics and Space' 
and 'Nanotechnologies and nanosciences'. In to tal, project funds stemming from 'non-core-
energy funds' add some €100 million to the R&D on SET-P priority technologies, mainly in 
the areas of hydrogen and fuel cells, CSP and PV. 
The total support to non-nuclear SET-Plan pr iority technologies th rough the various budget 
lines of FP6 has been estimated to have been  in the order of €629 mi llion over the period 
2002-2006, or €157 million on an annual average.  
Complementing the FP budgets, the EURATOM framework program allocated €815.5 
million to fusion activities. The total EURATOM contribution for nuclear fission-related activities was €189.2 million. However, only a smaller pa rt of this is dedicat ed to research in 
new nuclear (GEN IV) reactor technologies, whic h are explicitly mentioned in the SET-Plan. 
Those activities are mainly financed under th e topic 'Innovative Concepts' (ca. €17 million) 
within the budget line 'Other activities'. The JRC spent an additional €280.1 million on nuclear energy, yet mainly not directed  towards GEN IV reactors (JRC, 2008). 
A broad range of other funding schemes exist,  parts of which may be used for e.g. 
demonstration projects of new energy tec hnologies. Without being comprehensive, box 1 
briefly describes some of them, largely base d on an earlier study ( DG TREN Task Force, 
2008). 
                                                
 
34 Decision 1513/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council 
 
EN 42   EN Box 1 - Other EU financing funds 
Intelligent Energy Europe  has been an EU programme for the promotion of energy 
efficiency and renewable energy sources. The IEE I programme lasted from 2003 to 2006. It 
had a total budget of €200 million over the period 2003-2006, of which €69.8 million were allocated to energy efficiency, €80 million to  renewable energy sources, €32.6 million to 
energy aspects of transport, and €17.6 million on the promotion of renewables and efficiency 
at international level.A further breakdown can be obtained when assessing the commitments 
under IEE I instead of the budget. Within ALTENER, commitments to Renewables for 
Electricity Generation amounted to €18.6 million, to  Renewables for Heating and Cooling to 
€16.6 million and for Small Renewables to €15.9 million; commitments to biofuels accumulated to €10.5 million. The IEE II progra mme started in 2007 as part of the €3.6 
billion Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme. It will last to 2013. Altogether, around €727 million will  be available to fund projects for the promotion of 
energy efficiency and renewable energy. This  implies a doubling of the average annual 
budget compared to the IEE I Programme. 
Within the Cohesion Policy , support to energy-related R&D activities takes pl ace in various 
forms. Firstly, within the Cohesion Policy €49.9 billion are allocated for supporting Research 
and Technological Innovation over the peri od 2007-2013, parts of which apply to the 
technologies and actors considered here. In ad dition, these funds will help to improve the 
research infrastructure in general, suppor ting e.g. R&D activities in research centres, 
technology transfer and coopera tion activities. Secondly, €9 bill ion are allocated to support 
renewables and energy efficiency over the sa me period, mainly focusing on demonstration 
and deployment. In the context of the Cohesi on Policy initiatives to  support the European 
Economic Recovery Package, an amendment ha s been adopted to the European Regional 
Development Fund to allow energy efficiency and renewables interventions in residential 
buildings in all EU Member Stat es. This opens the possibility fo r Member States to reallocate 
a further €8 billion to these types of investme nts. Finally, Cohesion Policy funds can also use 
innovative financing mechanisms to increas e the leverage of pub lic investments and 
encourage private sector participation. Examples  of this are JESSICA and JASPERS that can 
both support energy investments with Cohesion Policy funds with the collaboration of the 
EIB among other international institutions. 
The Trans-European Networks 'Energy'  are used for promoting electricity and gas 
infrastructure projects. With regard to low-carbon energies, they may play a role for e.g. 
financing offshore wind connections or of reserve capacities and smart grids for a better integration of fluctuating renewable energy carriers.  
The last reform of the Common Agricultural Policy  decided in November 2008, known as 
'Health Check', shifts funds from direct ai d to farmers into Rural Development funding 
through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). The additional funding obtained for five identified "new ch allenges", including climate change and 
renewable energy, totals 8.2 billion Euros for 2010-2013. 
 
4.2. R&D investments by SET-P priority technology 
In the following, the results of the assessment sha ll be presented at the ba sis of the individual 
low-carbon technologies that ar e the focus of this report. The assessment of the public 
national R&D budgets of Member States largel y relies on the IEA RD&D statistics, thus 
 
EN 43   EN lacking information about a number of EU Me mber States (see se ction 1.1.1). Due to the 
limited data availability described above, it was also not always possible to narrow the 
industry's research investment down to definite  figures in the individual technologies. This 
means that when comparing e.g. the R&D invest ments by technology fields, it should be kept 
in mind that the uncertainties might be larger than the differences between the investments. All in all, it is likely that the approach follo wed leads to an under-estimation of the corporate 
R&D investments, stemming from the fact that  only a limited number of companies could be 
considered for each sector, and due to missing da ta that sometimes did not allow an educated 
estimation for some of the companies (see section 3.2.1). 
In general, data for PV, wind and concentratin g solar power are more robust than those for 
H2/FC, biofuels and CCS. This is due to the fact that in prior fields, a substantial number of companies are specialised in this technology only;  therefore their total R&D investment could 
be assumed to be spent on those technologies, thus reducing the uncertainty (see section 4.3). 
The figures on R&D investment for Smart Grid s should be considered as particularly 
uncertain as research in this area is often s ubsumed under headings on a more general level; 
besides, no comprehensive list of key actor s could be generated for this sector.  
4.2.1.  Wind energy  
Europe is leading in wind energy, holding a 61% share of the globally installed wind energy 
capacity in 2007 (EUROBSERV'ER, 2008a). Give n the high global investments in this 
technology (around US$50 billion in 2007; Boyle et  al., 2008), it is not surprising that 
research investments in the EU reached €383 million in 2007. 
With wind energy in general being considered a rather mature technology, R&D investments 
are clearly dominated by industry, accounting for three quarters of the total. The comparably 
elevated maturity of wind energy would also be supported by wind energy showing the largest 
share of support to demonstration activities wi thin the aggregated national R&D investments 
across all technologies considered  (see Figure 3 and section 3.1 for a further explanation of 
the limitations of the underlying data). 
Both corporate and public investments mostly occu rred in those EU Memb er States that have 
a large wind energy share and industry (G ermany, Denmark or Spain). The large public 
budgets of other Member States  may be explained by plans th at aim at actively increasing 
their wind energy share, such as the UK with ambitious offshore wind plans. However, even 
if the above Member States accounted for some  90% of the EU aggregated funds, also other 
Member States such as Italy, Sweden or France invested in wind energy  related research. The 
EU funds that were dedicated to wind energy projects within FP6 remained limited. 
Compared to the year 2006, the estimated co rporate R&D investments in wind energy 
increased significantly (by an order of ma gnitude above 20%) to reach €292 million in 2007 
while public national funds showed a sma ll decrease (-7%). The EU funds under FP6 
amounted to around €43 million over the period 2002-6 (or €11 million on an annual average), a figure which is similar to the one estimated by Langloi s d'Estainot (2009). 
The aggregated R&D investment of EU-based  companies (€292 million in 2007) is the result 
of an assessment of 13 companies. Companies be ing entirely or mostly active in this sector 
such as Vestas, Gamesa, Enercon, Nordex an d RE Power are among the largest investors. 
This figure of €292 million compares relativel y well to the results of other studies: 
 
EN 44   EN • The Technology Platform Wind assumed corporate R&D investments of a set of 6 selected 
companies to be in the order of €175 million in 200635 (TP Wind, 2008), based on an 
approach similar to the one used here. The differences to  the present report can be 
accounted for by the extended research scope of  the present study, covering 13 companies. 
• The SRS project estimated the corporate R&D investment allocated to wind energy to be in 
the order of €110 million for 2005. The discrepancy to the assessment in the present report 
may be explained by the lack of data for c ountries with an importa nt wind industry (such 
as Germany and Spain). Furthermore, the R&D investments of the wind industry have been growing substantiall y in recent years, expl aining another part of the differences in the 
results of the SRS and the present report.  
• The comparison of the corporate R&D investment s with the turnover of  the European wind 
energy sector further confirms the result of th is work. Assuming its turnover to have been 
in the order of €11.3 billion
36 (Zervos et al., 2008), the results  of the present report would 
thus indicate an R&D intensity of this sector of 2.6%-3.0%. Th is is considerably above the 
low R&D intensities of companies active in the electricity sector (0.6%) and oil and gas producers (0.3%) and in the orde r of magnitude of producers of electrical components and 
equipment (3.4%) and industrial machinery ( 2.6%) (Hernandez et al ., 2008). Considering 
that the selection of companies associated  with research on wind energy made in the 
present report consists of companies from all of the above sectors with a focus on 
component suppliers and specialised wind en ergy turbine producers, this comparison 
supports the finding of the present assessment
37. 
0510152025
HU AT IE PT CZ SE FR FI IT NL ES DK DE UK€ million3%
21%
76%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
121 1 1 1111111111
2 2 22
22
22
2222
ca. €383 million
21- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 12: Approximate R&D investment in wi nd energy from industry and public sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
                                                 
35 Data are corrected from the original re port as Nordex had been counted twice. 
36 The turnover of the European wind industry was estimated to have been around €9 billion in 2006 
(EWEA, 2007). Extrapolating this into 2007 would result in an approximate turnover of €10 billion 
(EUROBSERV'ER, 2008a), supporting the figure provided by Zervos et al., 2008.  
37 From this comparison one cannot derive whether the R&D intensity of the sector is sufficient or not. 
For deriving such a conclusion, it may be more appropriate to compare with R&D intensities of other 
rapidly developing sectors as done in chapter 5 despite some methodological problems that may arise 
when linking distinct sectors with different innovation systems. 
 
EN 45   EN Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. Irish data refer to the year 2006. R&D investments for Belgium cannot be displayed at the current 
scale of the chart. 
4.2.2.  Photovoltaics 
The aggregated research investments in photovolta ic technologies are es timated to have been 
€384 million in 2007. The data indicate that pub lic funds account for a substantial share 
(42%), and even so may not yet fully refl ect all PV-related spending in large national 
institutes which partially is not included in th e data collected in the IEA RD&D statistics (see 
section 1.1.1). Compared to the year 2006 public  national funds increased by almost 15%.  
05101520253035
PT IE FI AT SE ES DK BE NL UK IT FR DE€ million7%
35%
58%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
1 1111111111
2222222
2222
ca. €384 million
11- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
1
2
 
Figure 13: Approximate R&D investment in photovoltaics from industry and public sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. No annual average estimated for Belgium du e to a limited number of data; Irish data refer to the 
year 2006. 
The funds spent through the EC FP6 are in the or der of 17% of the aggregated Member States 
national public funds (see Figure 13). On an annual average over the duration of FP6, they 
were €27 million, or €108 million over the entire FP6 period. This result of the present project-based assessment of EU funds is fully in line with fi gures provided by EPIA (2007) 
and Menna et al. (2007). 
Most of the public funds originated from count ries with a comparably high deployment of 
PV, such as Germany, France, Italy, and the Ne therlands. Despite a limited deployment of PV 
in the UK, British public R&D investments are relatively high while the opposite is the case 
for Spain. Most of the EU co rporate R&D investments in PV  stem from companies with 
headquarters in Germany, France, Spain and the UK. 
The Spanish data presents a contrast in that on the one hand, the country has an excellent solar 
resource, and combines a favourable deployment scheme with high growth rates in installed 
PV capacities
38, while on the other the public and cor porate research budge ts are relatively 
                                                 
38 In 2007, it ranked second among EU Member States in terms of installed PV capacity. 
 
EN 46   EN low. This may partly be explained by the us e of imported technology. Also PV has become a 
priority in the Spanish national energy strategy only recently, and would thus impact on future 
R&D budgets but would not yet be reflected in R&D budgets that are the results of decisions 
taken some years before.  
Only 4 (Q-cells, Solarworld, BP Solar, Isofoton ) of the top 15 manufacturers of PV modules 
are located in the EU and the EU corresp ondingly produced 28.5% of global PV cells 
(EUROBSERVER, 2008b). At the sa me time, given the high growth rates of the global PV 
market in recent years and its potentials fo r further expansion, the sector has become 
attractive for a number of non-sp ecialised multi-business companies (such as Siemens, Shell, 
BASF, Schott and Total) and saw a corporate R&D investment of €221 million in 2007 in the 
EU, well above comparable figure s for the year 2006 (an increase of  more than 20%). This is 
the result of the assessment of 30 key compan ies in this sector, for which data could be 
obtained. Unfortunately, for some important  companies, no data could be acquired39. 
However, a comparison with othe r studies endorses the findings  obtained with the present 
approach: 
• In particular, according to an estimate published by the German Association of solar 
industry (Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft BS W) the German PV industry invested €176 
million in R&D in 2007, out of which €150 million came from the dedicated PV industry and business units and another €26 milli on from suppliers (Ruhl et al., 2008
40). This R&D 
investment from 'industry' (€150 million) can be compared to the R&D investment of 
companies considered in th e present report w ith headquarters in Germany, which 
amounted to €118 million in 2007. This reveals reasonable accordan ce between the two 
studies, in particular when one considers that the German approach assesses the R&D 
investment of both German and foreign enterprises in Germa ny (this latter part is not 
covered by the approach applied in the pres ent report) and that the company assessment 
approach used here was not fu lly complete as noted above. 
• Compared to the turnover of the EU PV  sector, which was around €9-10 billion in 2007 
(EPIA personal communication; EUROBSERV' ER, 2008b), the estimated R&D intensity 
is 2.2-2.5%. Given that the assessment includes a mix of companies wi th one part coming 
from less R&D intensive sectors with R&D intensities below 1% (e.g. construction and 
materials, oil and gas producers and electric utilities) and the from sectors with R&D 
intensities of the orde r of 2% to 4% (chemicals, elec trical components and alternative 
energy), the R&D intensity found for PV w ould support the finding of the analysis. 
4.2.3.  Concentrating solar power 
CSP-related research spending (approx. €86 mill ion) was relatively limited in 2007 compared 
with other SET-Plan priority t echnologies, reflecting the fact that interest in this field has 
started growing again only relatively recently. The potential locations of CSP plants are 
focused in the countries around the Mediterranean and as such, it is no t surprising that public 
R&D support is dominated by Ital y and Spain, accounting for more  than three quarters of the 
aggregated EU Member Stat es funds (see Figure 14). 
                                                 
39 For another 7 companies that were identified as important players, no figures could be obtained. 
40 The study was also used for verifying that all ma jor companies were included  in the present work.  
 
EN 47   EN The German contribution to CSP-research amount s to another 18% of the EU Member States' 
public aggregated investment, which may be e xplained by the strong position of German 
industry in this technological fi eld. This means that three Member  States i.e. Italy, Spain and 
Germany account for around 95% of the total public  R&D investment in th is technology. It is 
noted, however, that these figures may not fully  reflect CSP-related R& D spending in French 
national R&D centres. 
The EU support to CSP-related R&D activities through FP6 funds as as sessed in the present 
report reached €20 million over the FP6 duration (or €5 million on an annual average). This 
figure is slightly below the investments of €25 million published in European Commission 
(2007d), which can partly be explained by the fact  that some CSP-related projects have been 
allocated to other SET-Plan priority tec hnologies in order to avoid double counting.  
Corporate R&D investments (around €50 million) accounted for 56% of the overall spending, 
led by companies based in Spain and Germany, followed by Italian and French companies. Spanish and German companies are the main actors involved in th e ongoing demonstration 
projects launched in Spain, supported by the national feed-in programme. The estimation of 
the corporate R&D investment re lies on the assessment of 18 la rger companies for which data 
could be obtained. The assumptions for these co mpanies have been checked with and revised 
in line with an in-depth asse ssment of this sector (Haug et al., 2009), which also provided 
aggregated information on a number of smaller companies that were as well included in the 
present assessment. As a consequence, the esti mation of corporate R&D investments of this 
report is rather well in line with the findi ngs of €52.5 million in Haug et al. (2009). Note, 
however, that this should be considered as a low estimate. The uncertainties related with the 
estimation of R&D investments for the year 200 6 do not allow for an indication of the trend 
in corporate R&D investments in this sector.  
051015202530
DK FI UK DE ES IT€ million6% 38%
56%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €86 million
111111
222222
1- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 14: Approximate R&D investment in  CSP from industry and public sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. R&D investments for Austria cannot be  displayed at the current scale of the chart. 
 
EN 48   EN 4.2.4.  Biofuels 
Transport biofuels have become a priority in the EU policy over  the past years with a rapidly 
growing market. This is reflected by an important research budget of €347 million in 2007. 
Note that this figure is not restricted to research into 2nd generation biofuel production 
pathways that are a priority within the S ET-Plan, but comprises all transport biofuel 
technologies. Unlike for many ot her technologies, the Member States with the largest public 
R&D budgets in many cases do not coincide with the countries that host the headquarters of 
biofuel-research intensive companies.  
The public share of R&D investments remains low with only 23% of the total budget (see 
Figure 15). EU funds through FP6 amounted to  around €13.5 million on an annual average, 
which compares well to the assessment in Kutas et al. (2007). The limited share of public R&D investments may not only be due  to the relatively elevated maturity of biofuels, but may 
also be explained by data restrictions: 
• Public research budgets for first generation bi ofuels would naturally be limited considering 
the maturity of these technologies. However, due  to the potential negative impact of these 
starch- or oil-based fuels on f ood prices and the environment,  advanced biofuel processes 
are increasingly being considered as the more promising future pathways. As research into 
those '2
nd generation biofuels' has only recently beco me a (public) priority, it is reasonable 
to assume that it is not yet fully reflected  in the national R&D budgets that are based on 
budget decisions taken some years ago.  
• Furthermore, the data suggest that some Member States may not explicitly disclose R&D 
on biofuels, but rather allocate it under the category bioenergy-rela ted research. In 2007, 
the total R&D investment in bioenergy for the EU Member States reaches €245 million of which only €65 million is allocated to trans port biofuels. For this reason, the overall 
bioenergy-related public na tional research budge ts are also shown in Figure 15. 
Corporate R&D investments into biofuels are €269 million, based on an assessment of the 
R&D expenditures of 23 companies. Compared to the roughly estimated 2006 figures, this 
would mean an increase of some 10% to 20%  (note the uncertainties related to such a 
comparison as explained in box 3). The compan ies included in the analysis consist of 
specialised biofuel companies, la rge car manufacturers and oil co mpanies, with the latter two 
accounting for the larger part of  corporate R&D investments. Unfortunately, no figures could 
be obtained for a number of important  biodiesel and -ethanol producers.  
Within the limits of data accuracy a regi onal breakdown indicates that corporate R&D 
investments do not necessarily originate from co mpanies with headquarter s in countries that 
show a high public R&D budget. Indeed, all c ountries with high public biofuel-related R&D 
budget are home to companies with substantial research investment for biofuels (i.e. 
Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Spain a nd Austria). But at the same time, the 
assessment finds that substantial contributions also come from British and Finnish companies, 
even their public budgets do not explicitly alloca te funds to biofuels R&D. A slightly better 
match would thus be obtained be tween the location of corporate and public funds, if the total 
public bioenergy-related budgets we re considered instead of tr ansport biofuels only, which 
may be a sensible proxy for some countries th at do not explicitly re veal figures on biofuel 
R&D (see bullet point 2 above). 
 
EN 49   EN If we assume the turnover of the EU biofuel industry to have been in the order of €6-7.5 
billion in 200741, the results of the present report  (€269 million) would imply an R&D 
intensity of 3.6-4.5%. This R&D intensity may seem  elevated at first gl ance if compared to 
the results for the wind energy and PV sector s. However, it seems more plausible when 
considering that manufacturers of automobile s/parts, which are am ong those companies 
interested in biofuel research, have a rela tively higher R&D intensity (4.6%) than most 
energy-related sectors.  
The comparison with the SRS project results indi cates that the present analysis may be overly 
optimistic. According to that project, corpor ate R&D expenditures in bioenergy amounted to 
less than €50 million in 2005. However, it is important to note that biofuel research has gained in momentum over the last years, wh ich may account for parts of the difference. 
Furthermore, the approach used in the presen t assessment allocates R&D expenditure to the 
site of the headquarters. As such, all research  done by large EU-based oil companies active in 
biofuels research (e.g. Shell, BP , Total) or car manufacturers (e .g. Volkswagen) is  allocated to 
the EU. 
0102030405060
IE FI NL UK AT BE HU DE IT ES DK SE FR€ millionTotal bioenergy minus biofuels
Prod. of Transport Biofuels incl.
from Wastes
4%
19%
77%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €347 million
1111
1
11
1
1111
222
2
2
22
2222
2
1MS with reported R&D 
investments in transport biofuels1- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 15: Approximate R&D investment in transpor t biofuels from industry and public sectors 
(R&D investment in bioenergy is also included as supplementary information) 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. R&D investments of Portugal and Slovakia cannot be displayed at the current scale of the chart. 
No annual average estimated for Belgium due to a limited number of data; Irish data refer to the year 2006. 
                                                 
41 Note that no official figure could be obtained for the turnover of the EU biofuel industry. For this 
reason, it had to be approximated by two distinct  approaches. Firstly, multiplying the EU biofuel 
production figures with the typical market prices for bioethanol, biodiesel and pure vegetable oil would 
result in a turnover of some €6 billion, yet disregardi ng benefits from the sale of co-products. Secondly, 
the turnover of the German biofuel industry (BMU, 20 08) has been extrapolated to the total EU on the 
basis of Germany's contribution to overall EU biofuel production (data based on EUROBSERV'ER, 
2008c). This would result in a turnover of almost €7.5 billion.  
 
EN 50   EN 4.2.5.  Carbon dioxide captur e and storage (CCS) 
Research investments into CCS amounted to  €296 million in 2007. Both public and corporate 
R&D investments largely stemmed from relativ ely few Member States and companies with 
headquarters in these countries, namely Germ any, France, and the UK (as well as Sweden and 
Denmark with regard to corporate investments) . Together with biofue ls, CCS-related research 
showed the by far lowest amount of public f unding with a share of 19% (see Figure 16). 
Somehow similar to the case of  biofuels, this low amount a nd share of public funding might 
be explained by three factors: 
• Firstly, CCS has only recently become a priori ty for many Member States, reflecting the 
increasingly stringent targets on climate change . This may not (yet) be reflected in the past 
decisions that underlie the public R&D budgets  for the year 2007, which might imply an 
underestimation of current public R&D efforts in that area. 
• Secondly, with CCS being a relatively new technology, many Member States may not yet 
have accounted for CCS in an e xplicit category, but ra nked it within the category of 'fossil 
fuels', which has an important EU Member States budget of €240 million. This would also 
explain why data on CCS are availa ble for only eight Member States. 
• Thirdly, even though CCS is still in its deve loping phase, most of the single processes 
underlying it are rather well proven and the main  challenges are its large-scale application 
and cost reduction. The latter may not be cons idered as R&D but rather demonstration or 
even early deployment, and w ould thus not necessarily be included in public research 
efforts.  
EU funding through FP6 dedicated to CCS-research  has been in the order of €70 million (or 
€17 million as annual average). This result is fully supported by an assessment made by the European Commission (2007e), which estimated the FP6 support to CCS-projects to be €70 
million. 
051015202530
DK ES IT NL UK FR€ million6%
13%
81%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €296 million
1111 11
2222221- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 16: Approximate R&D investment in CO 2 capture and storage from industry and public 
sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
 
EN 51   EN Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. R&D investments for Portugal, Belgium and Austria cannot be displayed at the current scale of 
the chart. 
The elevated corporate R&D investments in this sector (around €240 million in 2007) are 
based on the fact that most large utilities, o il companies and some co mponent suppliers have 
an interest in this technology. This is underlin ed by the activities within the 'Greenhouse Gas' 
Implementing Agreement, one of the transnatio nal R&D programme cooperation activities of 
the IEA, which is dominated and mainly fi nanced by industry. Out of the 23 companies 
assessed in this sector, seven ar e electric utilities, three are oil companies, three are large 
component suppliers and anot her three are major chemical companies. Given the 
methodology applied, the intrinsic uncertainties of  determining the R&D share dedicated to a 
certain technology are elevated for these companie s as they are also ac tive in many different 
areas (see section 4.3). 
Nevertheless, corporate CCS-relate d R&D investments are of the same order of magnitude as 
information provided by the Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants 
in a letter to Commissioner Piebalgs from February 2008 (ZEP, 2008b), according to which 
the "corporate commitments" of the companies signed "to the early de velopment of CCS, as 
well as the achievement of CCS-related efficiency -increase, already amount  to a total of more 
than €635 million over the past five years in a ggregate". This figure would more or less 
confirm the estimation of the present report when considering that the research efforts in later 
years have probably been more intense than  those in earlier years given the increasing 
importance of CCS, and considering further that  the present assessment is based on a group of 
EU-based companies that is (slightly) la rger than the signees to the letter. 
4.2.6.  Hydrogen and fuel cells 
Hydrogen and fuel-cells seem to attract the largest R&D in vestments among the non-nuclear 
energy technologies considered in this repo rt: around €616 million are dedicated to this 
technology. This elevated investment may be expl ained by the fact that, unlike for most other 
technologies assessed, the categor y 'hydrogen and fuel cells' comp rises an entire fuel chain 
from production to consumption with a broad ra nge of transportation, stationary and portable 
applications, thus attracting a large number of different private and public actors. As such, a 
multitude of different single technologies are su bsumed under the heading 'hydrogen and fuel 
cells', all of which are at different levels of maturity.  
Public R&D investments of EU Member Stat es in 2007 and (annualised ) EU funds under FP6 
amounted to around €241 million, with the EU funding under FP6 having accounted for more 
than one quarter of this. This would mean that  the EU FP6 funds for H2/FC research projects 
reached around €70 million on an annual aver age (€280 million over the duration of FP6). 
This figures remains below the estimates of ot her sources that are in  the order of €300-320 
million (European Commission, 2007b; Filiou et al., 2009; Orion Innovations, 2008). This 
discrepancy can be explained by the allocation process undertaken in the present work (see 
section 3.4). If all projects that  were somehow related to H2/FC research had been allocated to 
H2/FC (even though their focus has been on other research areas such as  CCS), the total EU 
R&D investment in H2/FC would have r eached €318 million in the present analysis. 
However, for consistency reasons, such doubl e counting has been avoided, which may have 
caused some (limited) distortions for indivi dual sectors (see al so section 4.3.2).  
Compared to the year 2006, public national R& D budgets of the EU Member States included 
in the analysis increased by 17%. Member St ates with important R&D spending on hydrogen 
 
EN 52   EN and fuel cells include France, Germany, Italy and Denmark, followed by the UK with some 
distance (see Figure 17). The same countries  also host the companies with the largest 
corporate R&D investments, led by Ge rman, British and French companies. 
The public R&D investments foun d in the present report remain  below those of a recent 
publication based on data from the HY-CO proj ect, according to which the aggregated EU 
and Member States budgets amounted to €275 million in 2005 with further increases to be expected (Neef, 2008). Parts of the discrepa ncies may be explained by missing data on 
regional R&D funds that are excluded for so me countries. In Germany, for example, 
hydrogen and fuel-cell related re search investments financed by the Länder amounted to €18 
million in 2006 (Schneider, 2007). It is also pos sible that the important regional investments 
into H2/FC-related research in Italy ar e not included in the IEA database.  
The high corporate R&D investme nts (€375 million) might be explained by the number of 
companies interested in this res earch area as well as the fact that hydrogen and fuel cells are 
considered as a strategic research field for many of the large multinational companies with 
high overall research expenditu res. The present assessment l ooked into 68 companies active 
in this area, among them eight car manufacturers; six oil companies or utilities and four large 
component suppliers. The remainder predomin antly comprises various small companies 
specialised in fuel cells, but also includes so me large chemical or gas companies that are 
mainly involved in hydrogen-related research.  
In particular for multinational companies it is impor tant to note that the approach used in this 
report allocates the R&D to the location of headquarters and not to the country in which the 
research is effectively being carried out. This  may explain part of the differences of the 
present results with other studies:  
• The '2007 Worldwide Fuel Cell Industry Survey
42' (PWC et al., 2007) collected data on the 
global fuel cell industry through a web-based su rvey. It finds that global R&D investment 
in fuel cells amounted to US$829 million in 2006. However, only some US$107 million 
(ca. €80 million43) occurred in EU Member States. Compared with the findings of the 
present work, this estimate on EU investment in the Fuel Cell Survey seems rather low. 
This may primarily be due to the differences in the allocation of companies to geographic regions, which is of particular importance fo r this sector as it involves many multinational 
companies. Unlike the present report, the Fuel Cell Report allocates R&D investments to the country in which the R&D is being carried  out. In addition, the response rate of EU 
based companies in the study was limited (o ut of the 182 responses, only 37 where 
received from EU companies). Finally, the Fu el Cell Report concentrates on fuel cells and 
therefore leaves out the hydrogen production part.  
• The SRS project concludes that some €30 m illion were spent on hydrogen-related research 
in 2005. According to ERMINE, even less (€14 m illion) was spent on that line of research, 
yet restricted to the electricity sector. Thes e differences cannot be explained in simple 
terms but may partially stem from lack of data in thos e projects. Furthermore, car 
                                                
 
42 http://www.usfcc.com/resources/2007 worldwide_survey_final_low.pdf 
43 If this amount was amended by data for the Netherlands and France (based on figures from ECN 
(Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands) and l'Association Française de l'Hydrogène), which are 
not explicitly included, the EU tota l would rise to some €150 million. Such an approach would however 
lead to major methodological problems. 
 
EN 53   EN manufacturers, which are among the prime invest ors in fuel cells according to our analysis, 
are not considered by the ERMINE study. 
• In 2004, the IEA roughly estimated the private sector's R&D investment in hydrogen and 
fuel cells to be in the order of US$3-4 bil lion (IEA, 2004). Despite th e lack of a regional 
breakdown and important developments in the sector since then, th is estimation would 
support the order of magnitude of the present assessment. 
Given the particular uncertainties for deriving the corporate R&D investments in the present 
report and considering the wide span of resu lts found in literature, the results on industrial 
R&D investments in H2/FC must be regarded  with care. A further comparison would be 
needed with a special focus on the differences in the geographical allocation and definition of 
the sectoral boundaries.  
0102030405060
BE AT SE ES NL UK DK IT DE FR€ million11%
28%
61%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €616 million
12
121111111
2222
222
11- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 17: Approximate R&D investment in hydrogen and fuel cells from industry and public 
sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. Portuguese R&D investments cannot be displayed at the current scale of the chart. No annual 
average estimated for Belgium due to a limited number of data. 
4.2.7.  Smart grids 
The investments in R&D related to smart grids seem to be in  the order of €273 million with 
private funds accounting for more than 75% of the total (€212 million). Note that this figure is 
highly uncertain both with regard to data from industry and to public data44, and most likely 
comprises grid-related research that goes beyond a narrow definition of 'smart' grids. 
Due to the somehow 'fuzzy' boundaries of the 's mart grids' category, it was often not possible 
to make a substantiated assumption for the sh are of R&D investments dedicated to that 
technology. For this reason, the assumptions were made for all grid-connected research 
investment. Similarly, the IEA R&D statistics  used for assessing the national public R&D 
                                                 
44 According to IEA database, public national support to smart grids decreased by almost 50% between 
2006 and 2007. This is largely caused by a fall in Italian funds, which had shown very elevated R&D 
investments on smart grids for the year 2006 compared to data from  both the years before and 2007. 
 
EN 54   EN spendings do not contain a de dicated category for smart grids; instead category IV.2 
'Electricity Transmission a nd Distribution' was used.  
Also the EU funds through FP6 that have been estimated to have been €14 million on an 
annual average over the effective duration of FP6 remain below the estimates made in 
European Commission (2007c). Parts of the di fferences stem from the allocation process 
applied in the present work. Other parts may be explained by the fact that not all R&D 
included in European Commission (2007c) would necessarily be associated with the group 
'smart grids'. 
Finally, smart grid related research may attract  companies that go beyond the search pattern 
applied in this report. Beside s the component suppliers, electr ic utilities and other energy 
companies assessed, companies active in sect ors such as information technologies may be 
active in this area, such as IBM which has init iated the Intelligent Utility Network. Corporate 
R&D investments in smart grids largely stem from French-based companies (e.g. Areva, EdF 
Group) and German companies (e.g. Siemens). 
051015202530354045
DE UK SK DK IE AT FR SE BE NL FI IT€ million5%
17%
78%Public EU (FP6, annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €273 million
1 111 11111
22
222222 22
11- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
12
 
Figure 18: Approximate R&D investment in smar t grids from industry and public sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. Note that the IEA category IV.2 'Electri city Transmission and Distribut ion' comprises more than 
smart grids only. No annual average estimated for Belgium due to a limited number of data. 
4.2.8.  Nuclear fission  
Within the context of the SET-Plan, research in to 'generation IV' reactors is of particular 
interest. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to narrow down either the public or the private 
nuclear fission related R&D investments ex clusively to resear ch on generation IV 
technologies, meaning that the figures provi ded in the following are likely to be an 
overestimation45. In order to limit the overestimation, th e main analysis refers to research 
                                                 
45 The concept of Generation IV is linked to particular  objectives such as greatly increased sustainability 
and minimised long-lived waste production, increased resistance to weapons proliferation, a level of 
safety at least equivalent to the best achievable in current technology with emphasis on passive and 
 
EN 55   EN investments in the area of nuclear  reactor technology and the fuel cycle (to the exte nt that this 
was possible for the private sector). To simplify, this group will be referred to as 'nuclear 
reactor R&D' in the following. Nonetheless, it was decided to also present figures on 'total 
nuclear fission related R&D' , which besides reactor  technology R&D also  contains topics 
such as nuclear safety, envir onmental protection, waste manage ment, fissile materials control 
(i.e. security issues), and a vari ety of other topics – some of which may have no direct relation 
to energy production. Figure 20 thus provides information on these total nuclear fission 
related R&D budgets as well.  
Note, that these cannot be directly compared with the investments in any other technology 
assessed within the present report, since the R& D is for the sector as a whole whereas all 
other technologies focus on innova tive "low carbon" aspects only  (e.g. CCS research does not 
include any activities on coal mining, fossil fuel combustion technology, etc.). Even a 
comparison between the R&D investments of other technologies with those in 'nuclear reactor 
R&D'  thus remains difficult without a clear idea of the generation-IV component. Besides, it 
should be remembered that genera tion IV is a refinement of a technology already responsible 
for large-scale low-carbon ener gy production. The nuclear indus try is a well-established, 
profitable and high-tech industria l sector that, as part of normal investments in improvements 
and everyday developments in current technolog y, already devotes consid erable resources to 
R&D on the nuclear fuel cycle in general a nd nuclear reactor tec hnology in particular. 
The difference between total nuclear fission R& D and reactor-related R&D is illustrated for 
the national public budgets in Figure 19 – th e difference between the two categories is 
accounted for by 'nuclear supporting technolog ies', which is excluded when focusing on 
'nuclear reactor R&D'. There is some doubt, ho wever, over the exact definition of the R&D 
undertaken and even the public or industrial attribution of parts of  this spending. In particular, 
though some revenue is attributed  within the public domain, it ma y originate from the sale of 
nuclear electricity or nuclear r eactors / services. For example, it is known that the funding of 
R&D on waste management (in particular ge ological disposal) is supported essentially 
through the "polluter pays principle" (i.e. reve nue from sale of nuclear electricity) even 
though funds are often managed in the public do main. More detailed analysis than was 
possible within the present survey will be ne eded in order to quantify such effects.  
                                                                                                                                                         
intrinsic design features, and other uses of nuclear energy such as process heat for industrial processes, 
e.g. hydrogen production. It is these aspects that are of particular interest in the context of the SET-Plan. Most of this effort is currently at the stage of pre-competitive research. 
 
EN 56   EN 0100200300
Nuclear
Supporting
Tech.Fuel Cycle Other
Converter
ReactorsLight-Water
ReactorsOther
Nuclear
FissionNuclear
Breeder€2007 millionFR
BE
IT
DE
NL
FI
SE
CZ
Others"Nuclear reactor R&D"
 
Figure 19: Aggregated public support of EU Members to R&D in selected nuclear energy 
technologies in 2007 
Source: IEA RD&D statistics 
Note: Gap filling applied with data from back to 2003 as follows: 2006 data were used for Finland and the 
Netherlands while for the Czech Republic 2003 data were used. Note that only the total fission R&D is given for 
the UK in 2007 (€4.3 million); no nuclear R&D breakdow n is available except for nucl ear breeder in 2003 for 
the UK. 
R&D investment in nuclear reactor R&D  amounted to around €458 million in 2007, almost 
equally financed by the private (€205 million)  and the public sector (€253 million). Both 
private and public funds largel y concentrate within France.  In 2007, France accounted for 
more than half of the total public budgets of  EU Member States in  nuclear-reactor related 
research. This result is to be viewed in the li ght of France's large shar e of nuclear generating 
capacity in Europe. i.e. ca. 50%. Other Member  States directing important budgets towards 
nuclear-reactor related re search were Italy, Germany and th e Netherlands (though very little 
was related to generation IV). 
Total investments in all nuclear fission related R&D  (€1.25 billion) would be almost three 
times the part that is dedicated to research  on nuclear reactor technologies. Corporate R&D 
investments account for 44% of this budget. 76 % of the Member States funding stems from 
France, which spends half of its total energy R&D budget on nucle ar fission (again, must be 
viewed in the light of the 79% of domestic elec tricity consumption being of nuclear origin in 
France). 
 
EN 57   EN 050100150200250300350400450500
CZ FI ES SE UK NL BE DE IT FR€ millionOther nuclear fission (i.e. nuclear
supporting technology)
Nuclear fission (mainly reactorresearch and fuel cycle, thus withoutsafety, waste, environment) 
54%1%
45%Public EU (EURATOM budget; annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €458 million
47%9%
44%
ca. €1250 millionTotal nuclear 
fissionNuclear reactor 
technology
11 1 11
1111
2 2 2 22222
11- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 20: Approximate R&D investment in nuclear fission from industry and public sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. Date for Slovakia, Denmark and Hungary cannot be displayed at the scale of the present chart. Note that it was not possible to narrow the analysis on 'generation IV' reactors. For this reason, a sub-group 
'nuclear reactor technology' has been artificially created, which mainly ignores R&D dedicated to 
environmental safety, radiation protection etc., but is still much broader than pure 'generation IV'. No annual averages estimated for Belgium and Czech Republic due to a limited number of data. Regarding EU funds for 
'total nuclear fission', not only project-related funds under EURATOM have been included but also the JRC 
funds dedicated to nuclear energy. 
The assessment of corporate R&D investments in  nuclear energy is based on nine companies 
only, reflecting the limited number of major play ers in this sector. Similar to the public 
funding, French companies (AREVA, EdF, GDF-Su ez to a lesser extent) largely dominate the 
total corporate R&D investments in nuclear fi ssion. Unfortunately, for most companies it was 
not possible to determine the part of nuclear R& D that is dedicated to  reactor technologies. 
Nevertheless, a rough estimate indicates that co rporate R&D investment in nuclear reactor 
technology may be in the order of €200 million, while corporate resear ch into all nuclear 
fission related aspects would amount to around €550 million. However, only a fraction of this will be on generation IV technology, reflecting un willingness by industry to invest heavily in 
a technology that is 30 years from possible commercial deployment and in a sector where 
there is considerable politic al and regulatory un certainty. Consequently, most industrial 
players see this currently as the princi pal responsibility of  the public sector. 
This compares to the results of the ERMINE project, which estimated the private investment 
into nuclear fission-related R&D to be in the order of €304 million in 2004. Given that 
AREVA, by far largest spender in this area, sa w an annual increase in its R&D expenditure of 
more than 20% over the past three years, the ER MINE result are relatively well in line with 
the present assessment.  
Box 2 – Euratom FP budget (indirect actions) on Gen IV reactors 
 
EN 58   EN In Euratom FP6 some €17 million were dedicate d to 'innovative concepts' out of a total of 
€189 million for all fission-related research (i.e . less than 10%). This is support to pre-
competitive research on the potential of Ge n IV technology. The overall Euratom FP7 budget 
for 'indirect actions' in nuclear fission has not  increased above inflation relative to FP6, and 
the programme retains its broad-based nature dealing with a number of priority areas in 
nuclear science and technology, some of which have  little if anything to do with nuclear 
energy per se. Nonetheless, it is likely that Gen IV-related research will constitute a larger 
percentage of the total during FP7 than during FP6.  
4.2.9.  Nuclear fusion  
Nuclear fusion is publicly fina nced with the EU-funds contri buting around 42% of the total 
(up to FP6 2006) and the Member States co ntributing the remaining 58% in 2007, amounting 
to a total of around €482 million (see Figure 21). Germany is the by far largest singly spending country, followed by Italy, France and the UK. 
Nuclear fusion energy research constitutes an exception among the SET-Plan priority 
technologies. There is hardly any corpor ate R&D investment and most public R&D 
investments are implemented in one single European Programme coordinated by EURATOM. After the decision to build I TER was taken in 2006, the implementation of the largest 
programmes (ITER and Broader Approach) is  carried out through the "European Joint 
Undertaking for ITER and the Development of  Fusion Energy", which was established in 
April 2007. 
Taking into account that the bulk of the bud get for ITER construc tion will be provided 
through the EU budget, it may be e xpected that the EU share of the overall expenditure in the 
next years will clearly exceed that of the Memb er States. This will reaffirm the exceptionality 
of the fusion case, while at the same time show ing that major global endeavours, such as the 
development of fusion energy through ITER, necessitate a different approach. Within the 7
th 
EU Framework Programme (and here within the EURATOM part), the maximum amount for 
the implementation budget dedicated to fusion re lated research for the period 2007 to 2011 
will be €1947 million, which means more than a doubling compared to the FP6 support. More 
than half of this amount is allo cated to work involved in the construction of ITER, but not less 
than €900 million is reserved for other ITER re levant activities including fundamental plasma 
research and technology developm ent projects. It must be noted  that this research cannot 
directly be compared to other technologies gi ven the scale of the initi al investments needed 
for constructing ITER (with capital costs exp ected to be some €5 billion and the total 
expected costs over its 35-year experime ntal lifetime reaching around €10 billion). 
 
EN 59   EN 020406080100120
PT SE DK AT BE FI NL ES UK FR IT DE€ million
42%58%
0%Public EU (EURATOM budget; annual average)
Public R&D spending of EU MS (2007)
Corporate R&D investment (2007) 
ca. €482 million
211 111 111111
2 222
222222
121- 2007 data (gap-filled)
2- Annual average over the period 2002-2007
 
Figure 21: Approximate R&D investment in nuclear fusion from industry and public sectors 
Source: JRC-IPTS based on IEA RD&D statistics and o fficial information from some Member States; FP6; EU 
Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 
Note: Some EU Member States are not IEA member and do thus not figure in the database; for others no data 
are available. No annual average estimated for Belgium due to a limited number of data. 
4.3. Analysis of uncertainties 
Both the assumption-based approach for estimating corporate R&D investments by 
technology and the data on public  R&D investments are associat ed with some uncertainties. 
The main uncertainty related with the estimates of corporate R&D investments stems from the assumption-based allocation process used for breaking down a company's R&D investment in 
the technologies considered in the report, a nd from missing data for so me companies. With 
regard to public R&D investme nts, differences in the extent  to which individual Member 
States include regional funding, institutional bu dgets and support to de monstration activities 
in their submission to the International Energy  Agency are the main source of uncertainty. 
Finally, the project-based alloca tion process of the EU FP6 funds is a potential source of 
(minor) errors.  
4.3.1.  Uncertainties associated with estimates for corporate energy R&D investments 
The analysis of corporate R&D investments by technology includes a number of uncertainties, 
the level of which depend on whether exact fi gures could be obtained, official data was 
available as a starting point, or 'e ducated guesses' had to be made.  
Figures with a 'very high accuracy'  (or very high confidence level) could be obtained for 
companies  
• for which the R&D investment is known thr ough annual reports or the EU Industrial R&D 
Investment Scoreboard, and that  are active exclusively in one technological field. Here, it 
was assumed that 100% of the well-known to tal R&D investment is allocated to the 
respective technology; 
• that provided the exact breakdown of their R& D investments either through direct contact 
or in official publications. 
 
EN 60   EN The uncertainty associated with figures on R&D investment for this group of companies is 
estimated to be in the order of ±2%. 
Figures with 'high accuracy'  (or high confidence level) are th ose that may be slightly inexact, 
but the probability of missing at least the right range is very lo w with an estimated uncertainty 
range around ± 10%. They relate to  
• companies for which the estimates made in the present report were refined through direct 
contact, but which did nevertheless not provi de exact figures on th eir R&D investments by 
technology; 
• companies for which the present estimates (o r range) are supported by figures from other 
studies. 
Figures with 'significant uncertainties'  relate to estimates that had to be made on the 
allocation of the total R&D inve stment to individual SET-Plan priority technologies. This is 
the case for companies that are ac tive in various fields at the same time and for which none of 
the above two points applies. Here, the R&D expenditures have been assessed with the 
methodology described above, which relies on a number of assumptions based on indirect 
indicators (such as the number of  staff or patents; total sales by division), press released and 
expert guesses. Whenever possible, different a pproaches have been combined in order to 
control the uncertainties related with one appr oach. For example, an analysis based on the 
number of R&D employees working in this specific technology was cross-checked with a 
parallel assessment based on patents or turnov er. Nevertheless, the estimates made for the 
R&D investments for this group of companies ar e approximate values onl y and we assume an 
uncertainty range that may reach ± 50% of the central estimate.  
Overall, the allocation process t hus proves to be the greatest source of uncertainty in the 
approach. Enhancing the level of certainty of the outcome would require a more systematic 
research. A more comprehensive analysis will  require an intensifie d direct contact to 
companies, a more systematic assessment of  the companies' patent registrations, an 
assessment of the busine ss areas and a closer lo ok into press announcements that may reveal 
plans for future development and thus allow so me conclusions regardin g R&D priorities (see 
also section 3.2.5).  
Finally, there have been a few co mpanies for which the lack of information did not even allow 
a rough estimate. However, this does not con cern any of the major R&D investors and would 
thus not distort the aggregated re sult to a large extent. The total lack of data ty pically occurred 
for some small companies active in one technologi cal area only, such as biofuels or H2/FC. It 
can also refer to companies for which the total R&D expenditure is available from the EU Scoreboard but the lack of any informati on did not allow any al location to individual 
technologies. 
Figure 22 illustrates the distributi on of results with the various levels of accuracies in terms of 
both the number of companies a nd the total R&D investment.  
 
EN 61   EN Number of EU companies  
(total of 136)
33
6821
14Very high accuracy
High accuracy
Significant uncertainty
No data
 Share of corporate R&D inves tments
24%
20%56%Very high accuracy
High accuracy
Significant
uncertainty
 
Figure 22: Number of companies and share of corp orate R&D investments by level of uncertainty of 
the analysis  
Source: JRC-IPTS 
Applying the uncertainty ranges of ±2%, ±10% and ±50% to the overa ll results, the overall 
uncertainty in the total co rporate R&D investment coul d amount to a maximum of ± €568 
million, roughly ±30% of the total46. This figure does, how ever, not include any 
uncertainties that stem from the fact that some  companies are not considered due to lack of 
data.  
The composition of companies associated to the different levels of accuracy and with it the 
uncertainty ranges vary across individual technol ogical sectors. In the areas of wind energy 
and CSP with an elevated share of specialis ed companies, the R&D investments can be 
estimated with a very high accuracy for more than 75% of the companies considered. This share decreases for PV (around 40%) and even mo re so for sectors such as CCS and smart 
grids, in which most of the companies consider ed are active in multiple business fields, thus 
necessitating an assumption-based breakdown that decreases the level of accuracy.  
While the above description applies for the estim ates made for the year 2007, the uncertainties 
associated to the rough estimates provided for the year 2006 are larger as the latter are partly 
derived from the hypotheses made for the year 2007. This is described in more detail in box 3. 
Box 3 - Methodology and uncertainties for approaching the 2006 R&D corporate 
investments 
The scope of this report lies in  the estimation of selected R& D investments for the year 2007. 
As an assessment of a one-year snapshot, however , bears a risk of giving  too much weight to 
one-off events or data mavericks, it was deci ded to also include an  annual average of the 
public national R&D expenditu re between 2002 and 2007 (s ee section 1.1.1). Even though 
data scarcity does not allow for a similar a pproach on corporate R&D investments, a rough 
estimation of the corporate R&D investment s for the year 2006 has been carried out. 
Nevertheless, the accuracy of the 2006 figures remains below the 2007 estimates. This is due 
to the fact that a simplified approach has been used for estimating 2006 corporate R&D 
investments, partly derived from the assu mptions made for 2007. Depending on the data 
availability for an individual company, an esti mate has been produced on the following basis:  
                                                 
46 An uncertainty analysis performed at the level of individual companies indicates a smaller uncertainty 
range of ±18% but contains some methodological problems and has thus not been further pursued.  
 
EN 62   EN 1- The exact figure has been taken from official  reports, the EU R&D scoreboard, etc. where 
available for 2006. 
2- The total R&D investment was provided fo r 2006 but there was no information about how 
it was spread over the SET-Plan priority technologi es. In this case, the same share (in terms of 
percentage of the total R&D) has been assumed as for the year 2007. This extrapolation is the 
source of some additional uncertainties given that the assumptions were originally 'tailored' 
for the year 2007.  
3- It has been assumed that the 2006 R&D i nvestments are equal to 2007 figures. This is 
mainly assumed for small companies for whic h no information was available for 2006. This 
requires an idea on whether significant changes in the R&D activities from 2006 to 2007 have 
occurred for the company considered. 
4- An estimate of the 2006 R&D expenses has been obtained on the basis of the number of 
R&D employees in the year 2006. This appr oach was mainly applied for companies 
specialised in a particular technol ogy (e.g. fuel cells small companies). 
All in all, the results for 2006 are associated with higher uncertainties than the 2007 figures, 
impeding a direct comparison between them. Ne vertheless, we consider that the accuracy 
allows a qualitative indication  of the trends in corporate R&D investments, without being 
able to quantify it with a high degree of precision.  
4.3.2.  Uncertainties associated with estimate s for public energy R&D investments 
As the assessment of national public R&D inve stments of EU Member States largely draws 
on the IEA RD&D statistics and refers to  the GBOARD only as a reference for cross-
checking on the aggregated level, the followi ng assessment of uncertainties focuses on data 
based on the IEA database.  
Uncertainties in the IEA figures mainly originat e from the differences in the extent to which 
individual Member States include regiona l funding, institutional budgets and support to 
demonstration activities in their original da ta. Such discrepancies limit the accuracy of a 
direct comparison across Member States . Furthermore, it needs to be noted that even for a 
given Member State, this may change over time,  adding some uncertainty when assessing the 
R&D trends over time . The mismatch between IEA members and EU Member States as well 
as the lack of data for some IEA members fo r a certain year and t echnology makes it difficult 
to derive an aggregated figure for the EU Member States'  public energy R&D investment. As 
this is nonetheless needed for the present analysis, it had to be approximated by applying a gap filling procedure and by excluding some Me mber States from the analysis of public 
national R&D investments (unless official da ta could be obtained through the consultation 
process with Member States). The impact of the above limitations on the present results is 
discussed below. 
According to the IEA questionnaire (IE A, 2008), federal R&D budgets should be 
complemented by regional (e.g. provincial) R&D spending when significant. Even so, this 
does not seem to be the case for many countries, while it is included for others (e.g. Belgium). In the case of Germany, for example, R&D s upport through regional gove rnments (Länder) is 
not part of the data underlying the IEA statis tics. The regional support to non-nuclear energy 
R&D of the 16 German Länder amounted to around €96 million in 2006 (Schneider, 2007), 
equivalent to considerably more than one th ird of the equivalent federal budget in 2006. At 
 
EN 63   EN the aggregated EU-level, the regi onal German funds would be in  the order of 4% (including 
both nuclear and non-nuclear ener gy R&D as one may assume that regional funds directed 
towards nuclear R&D are of limited nature ). Unfortunately, the under-estimation on the 
aggregated EU level that stems from the non- inclusion of some regional funds cannot be 
further quantified as it would re quire an in-depth assessment of  the national data included in 
the IEA RD&D statistics, which has been outside  the scope of the present work. However, it 
must be noted that regional R&D funds take an  important role only in a limited number of 
Member States, foremost all Germany, for whic h an estimation of the uncertainty could be 
performed. One may thus speculate that the total uncertainty stemming from potentially 
missing regional funds should not exceed some ±10-15% of the total. 
The IEA data focuses on energy-related R&D and as such excludes basic research 'unless it is 
clearly oriented towards the development of energy-related technologies' (IEA, 2008; section 
3.1). Often, this implies that th e national data relate to a national energy R&D programme, 
thus missing additional energy-related R&D spe nding that stem from other programmes (such 
as defence or general research programmes). At the same time, parts of the institutional 
funding included may in practice co ver research of a more basic nature. The extent to which 
such data are included can not be further quantif ied. It is expected to vary across the Member 
States, influenced by the structure of th eir national energy rese arch programmes and 
institutional set-up, and must be taken into acco unt when comparing Member States' data one 
with another. 
As explained in section 3.1, the data included in the IEA RD&D statistic shall capture public 
national support to demonstrati on activities in addition to thei r R&D support. However, most 
of the IEA members do not include or display th is data. The share of demonstration activities 
thus remains small in general, yet differs betw een countries and technologies (Figure 3). This 
needs to be kept in mind when comparing data across countries and technologies.  
Data gaps make it difficult to assess the tren d of R&D investments over time (such as the one 
shown in Figure 10). This is due to change s in the methodology, the geographical coverage 
etc. For example, the German data prior 1992 do not include the new Länder. Other Member States have provided only partial information fo r few years. For Belgium, data for the years 
2000-2006 are missing. France recen tly changed the methodology applied for calculating its 
national public res earch and development expenditure on energy (DGEMP 2007; 
MEEDDAT, 2008). Public budgets were re-calcula ted officially in accordance with the new 
methodology back to the year 2002 and match the IE A figures for those years. The figures of 
the IEA database prior to 2002 relate to the prev ious methodology. Any trends over time need 
to note this break in series, in particular  considering the discre pancy between the two 
approaches (e.g. the results differ by a factor of 1.9 for the year 2002) and the fact that France 
accounts for around one third of the EU Member St ates' aggregated budget. Despite this risk 
of distortion it was decided to  not manipulate the IEA data fo r France prior to 2002, but to 
restrict the analysis to the data directly av ailable from the database in order to ensure 
comparability with other sources.  
As mentioned in section 1.1.1, onl y 19 of the 27 EU Member Stat es are IEA members. This 
implies that the database systematically cont ains no data for Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, 
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, and Sl ovenia. A comparison with the energy R&D 
budgets according to the GBAORD database, whic h includes data for most Member States, 
reveals that the mistake made in the EU-aggregate that is caused by the lack of data for some 
Member States remains limited (see Table 5) . The aggregated R&D budgets of the Member 
States covered by the IEA database account for around 99% of the overall EU-27 energy 
 
EN 64   EN budget according to GBAORD data , notwithstanding that the c ontributions of the missing 
Member States may be higher for individual technologies.  
The aggregated EU Member States' national pub lic R&D budgets would be more distorted by 
the lack of data on R&D inve stments that occur for some IEA members for a single year – 
often the most recent year; here: 2007 – and technology. At the time of downloading the 
information form the IEA RD&D statistics in  January 2007, informati on on their 2007 energy 
R&D investments was lacking for 10 of the coun tries assessed. Conseque ntly, the aggregated 
figure for the year 2007 would have summed up to €1237 million only. Due to the exchange 
of data with a number of Memb er States, official national fi gures could be obtained to fill 
these gaps for three countries (and adapt the figu res for two others); for the others, a simple 
gap filling procedure has been applied. For en tries missing for 2007, the value from the latest 
available year was applied down to the year 2003. Overall, once the 'data gaps' are filled, 
public national energy R&D investments in 2 007 are almost a factor of two above the 
aggregate that was based on the 'raw data', an d are well in line with the levels found for the 
years before and the GBAORD figures. This resu lt justifies the data manipulation applied in 
the present report.  
The distortion caused by the gap filling procedure is limited. Gap filling with values from 
previous years has been done for three count ries with a total R&D investment of €257 
million. If one assumes that the maximal annual changes of their energy R&D investments do 
not exceed the relatively high value of 20%, th e mistake caused by the gap filling would be 
€57 million, equivalent to 2.4% of  the total aggregated figure  over all EU Member States 
considered. Of course, for some technologies, a more drastic gap filling procedure has been 
necessary. Nevertheless, given that the main inte rest of this report lies on the aggregated EU 
figures, the gap filling approach seem appropriate and the related distortions could be limited due to the direct exchange of da ta with some Member States.  
In total, we assume that the potential errors made in the estimation of  the aggregated public 
R&D investments of EU Member States should not exceed ± 13 to 19%, notwithstanding that 
it may be larger for individual technologies. 
Main uncertainties associated with the assessment of EU R&D funds under FP6  results from 
the biunique allocation of indi vidual projects to one group of SET-Plan technologies and the 
assumption of an even split of the investment s over the entire duration of FP6. The latter 
seems fully justified for the present work as it levels out annual fluctuations due to the project cycles.  
In order to avoid double-counting of projects,  as a general principle the funding of an 
individual project was allocated to not more than one t echnology. Considering that a number 
of projects simultaneously undertake research in  fields related to different groups (e.g. CCS 
and hydrogen production), this leads to an uncerta inty associated with the aggregated EU FP6 
funds by SET-Plan priority tec hnology. This is most elevated for the sector hydrogen and fuel 
cells: if all related projects we re accounted for in this sector instead of removing those that 
have their research focus in other technologica l fields, the total FP6 funds would amount to 
€318 million over the period 2002-2006 instead of the central figure of €279 million used in 
this report (i.e. ± 13%). Also for CCS, biofue ls and to a lesser extent CSP the bijective 
allocation process generates some distortion. At  the aggregated level over all technologies, 
however, these uncertainties level out unless they  occur between SET-Plan priority and non-
priority technologies (such as between transport biof uels and bioenergy) . We estimate this 
error to not exceed ± 5%. 
 
EN 65   EN 4.3.3.  Combined uncertainties 
Not all uncertainties of the present analysis can be quantified. In particular, the present 
assessment of corporate R&D investments tends to be an under-estimation of total industrial 
research efforts in this area, given that a num ber of companies could not be included in the 
present assessment due to either the lack of data or their missing inclusion in the list of 
relevant companies by technology. Furthermore, im portant up-stream rese arch activities that 
are realised in the supply chain could only be captured to a limited extent. 
Keeping in mind that the overall figures tend to  be an underestimation, an upper range of the 
uncertainties related with the R&D investments that are included in the present assessment can be roughly quantified. Assuming from the above reasoning an overall uncertainty of not 
more than ± 30% for the estimates on the co rporate R&D investments, ± 19% for public 
national investments and ± 5% for the EU funds, the cumulative e rror on the total R&D 
investment in SET-Plan priority technologies  (€3.3 billion) would not exceed ± €784 million, 
or 24% of the total. 
 
EN 66   EN 5. CONCLUSIONS 
The present report provides an estimate of the current corporate and public European R&D 
investments in those low-carbon tech nologies that are of particular  interest in the context of 
the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan47 ('SET-Plan priority technologies'). Its 
ultimate objective is to offer a benchmark of th e current R&D spending of those technologies 
to serve as a basis for the comparison with their future R&D needs48.  
For corporate and Member States' national public R&D spending the focus of the analysis lies 
on the 2007 figures while the relevant EU R&D i nvestments are annualis ed figures under FP6 
(2002-2006). In order to avoid putting too much we ight to one-off events or data mavericks, 
annual average of the public national R&D expenditure between 2002 and 2007 are also 
included for comparison as well as a very rough estimation of the corporate R&D investments 
for the year 2006.  
Currently, no single database exists which wo uld allow for an estimation of the overall 
research efforts by technology in the EU-27. Data  are particularly sketchy with regard to 
corporate R&D, even though public R&D budgets ar e also incomplete. The low availability 
of data on industrial R&D data is influenced by  the fact that companies consider information 
on their detailed R&D expenditure as confiden tial. Therefore, a new methodology has been 
developed for assessing corporate R&D invest ments on company level. For each SET-Plan 
priority technology, the number of key R&D investors has b een identified. A company's 
overall R&D investment has then been allo cated to individual technologies based on the 
combination of publicly available information w ith expert judgment. Hence, the estimates of 
corporate R&D investment s are subject to signif icant uncertainties. They should thus not be 
used or compared without taking into account th e methodological limitations of this approach.  
With regard to public national R&D funding, the most recent avai lable data (2007) have been 
used from Eurostat (GBAORD) and the In ternational Energy Agency, complemented by 
information that was directly obtained from various Member States. Unfortunately, both the 
GBOARD and the IEA databases miss some entrie s at the technological le vel of detail needed 
and not all EU Member States ar e covered in the IEA database as only 19 EU Member States 
are also IEA members. Data missing for 2007 have  been gap filled with data from previous 
years back to 2003 if available.  
For an overview of the EU funding, the 6th Research Framework Programme and the 
EURATOM Framework Programme were assessed. An assessment of the basis of individual 
project has been performed, going beyond proj ects financed under the 'core energy budget 
line' 'sustainable energy systems' and also  including relevant projects funded under budget 
lines such as 'sustainable surface transport' or  'Horizontal research activities involving SMEs' 
etc. An annual average of the commitments has been used for these multiannual programmes 
(2002-2006).  
                                                 
47 Technologies included are: hydrogen and fuel cells; wind energy; photovoltaics; concentrating solar 
power; carbon capture and storage; biofuels; smart grids; nuclear fission (Gen IV reactors); nuclear fusion. 
48 See section 2.1 for a definition of the boundaries of R&D. The underlying data also include some 
support to some demonstration activities (in particular  the public national budgets), but the focus of the 
assessment lies on the R&D investments. 
 
EN 67   EN Both the basic data as well as the approach app lied in the present work are associated with a 
number of potential errors. The main uncerta inties for the estimates of corporate R&D 
investments derive from the assumption-base d allocation process used for breaking down a 
company's R&D investment in the technologies c onsidered in the report . Furthermore, it is 
reasonable to assume that the results on industrial R&D investments constitute a lower estimate of industrial research efforts, resulti ng from the lack of data and the limitation in the 
number of companies included in the assessmen t. Moreover, important up-stream research 
activities that are realised in the supply chai n could only be captured to  a limited extent. With 
regard to public R&D investme nts, differences in the extent  to which individual Member 
States include regional funding, institutional bu dgets and support to de monstration activities 
in their submission to the International Energy Ag ency add some uncertainty. Also the lack of 
data for an individual year and technology a nd the resulting gap filling process forms a 
potential source of error.  
Keeping in mind that the ove rall figures on corporate R&D efforts tend to be an 
underestimation, an upper range of the uncertainties associated  with the R&D investments 
presented in the following can be roughly estima ted. Applying an overall uncertainty range of 
not more than ± 30% for the estimates on the corporate R&D investments, ± 19% for public 
national investments and ± 5% for the EU funds, the cumulative e rror on the total R&D 
investment in SET-Plan priority technologies does not exceed ± 24% of the total even though 
higher uncertainties may apply to the results related to one individual technology. Future 
work may reduce the uncertainties associated with the estimation of corporate R&D investments by expanding the list of companies assessed, enha ncing direct contact with 
industries; and making a more systematic use of indirect indicators such as patent 
applications. 
Despite the uncertainties described, the order of magnitude of the results obtained in the 
present report is supported by a comparison with  other sources both on the overall level and at 
the level of individual technolog ies and funders. It can thus be  considered as a reasonable 
approximation of the present R&D investments.  
Hence, the following substantiated conclusions can be derived on the basis of the present 
assessment. Due to the differe nt nature of nuclear and non- nuclear energy research, the 
respective conclusions are being kept apart with points (1) to (3) relating to non-nuclear R&D, 
(4) on nuclear and (5) and (6) on nuc lear and non-nuclear research. 
(1) R&D investments in non-nucle ar SET-Plan priority te chnologies amounted to 
€2.38 billion in 2007
49 in the EU. The fact that la rge parts of non-nuclear energy 
research are dedicated to these selected low-carbon technologies indicates that 
they are seen as a strategic research fi eld by both public and industrial R&D 
investors. 
National public non-nuclear ener gy R&D budgets in EU Member  States amounted to more 
than €1.6 billion in 2007, out of which €571 mil lion were dedicated to non-nuclear SET-Plan 
priority technologies. The incr ease of R&D investments in non- nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies since the la te 1990s meant that their share in  the total non-nuclear energy R&D 
                                                 
49 2007 figures are provided for corporate and Member States' national public R&D spending while the 
relevant EU R&D investments are annualised figures under FP6 (2002-2006). 
 
EN 68   EN spending rose from around 20% in 1999 to 34.5% in  2007, indicating th e rising importance 
being given to those technologies. 
Under the 6th Research Framework Programme, the EU spent around €157 million on non-
nuclear SET-Plan priority technologies on an annual average. No detailed figures could be 
obtained on the level of detail needed from FP7  (2007-13). However, taki ng into account that 
the average annual non-nuclear energy R&D budget has increased substantially compared to 
FP6, one may assume that also budgets direct ed to (some) non-nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies are above those of FP6.  
Almost 39% of the European public non-nuclear  energy research budget (including Member 
States and  the EU FP6 contribution) are dedicated  to the non-nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies considered in the present report. Th is figure would increase to more than 50% if 
instead of including only R&D on wind, PV, biofuels and CSP, all renewable energy-related 
research was included. 
Both in absolute and in relative terms this puts the EU in front of the US and Japanese public 
R&D funds dedicated towards a si milar set of 'non-nuclear SET-Pl an priority technologies', 
despite both countries having slightly larger total energy-related R&D budgets (yet including 
nuclear). However, such comparison is misleadi ng as it disregards the fact that the US and 
Japanese energy programmes are strongly focu ssed, while synergies between EU Member 
States currently remain under-exploited due to  limited alignment of national programmes and 
the slow uptake of joint activities. 
The significant corporate R&D investments in non-nuclear SET- Plan priority  technologies 
indicate that these technologies  are also being considered as  important by industry. Corporate 
R&D investments exceeded €1.65 billion in 2007, implying an important increase from 2006 in the order of magnitude of some 15%.  
No data are available that would allow for an assessment of the share of corporate R&D 
investments dedicated to non-nuclear SET-Plan  priority technologies within the overall 
energy-related R&D investments of industry. However, a very  rough comparison with other 
studies indicates that research investments for SET-Plan priority technologies play an 
important role in total corporate energy R&D in vestments. The (rising) importance given to 
R&D into SET-Plan priority t echnologies by both the corporat e and the private sector would 
also be supported by the increasing number of patent applications in renewable energy 
technologies (Johnstone  et al., 2008).  
Even so, the R&D intensities in those sectors for which a turnover could be obtained remain 
low compared to other emerging sectors.
50 For the wind, PV and bi ofuel sectors, the R&D 
intensities derived from the present report ar e in the order of 2.2-4.5%. Even though they are 
well above the R&D intensities of traditional energy companies (see below conclusion 3), 
they fall largely behind the R&D intensities of other sectors that experi enced a boom in recent 
years, such as the IT-related sectors 'software', 'computer hard ware' or 'semi-conductors' with 
R&D intensities in the order of 8%  to 18% over the past five years51.  
                                                 
50 Note that from a methodological point of view R& D intensities cannot directly be compared between 
different sectors due to the considerable differences in their innovation systems (see e.g. Malerba, 2004, 
on sectoral systems of innovation; Kaloudis and Pedersen, 2008, on the energy sector).  
51 Figures relate to EU-based companies and are taken from various versions of the EU Industrial R&D 
Investment Scoreboards (Herna ndez Guevara et al., 2008). 
 
EN 69   EN (2) Aggregated public and corporate R&D investments are in a similar range for 
most non-nuclear SET-Plan priority energy technologies. Exceptions are R&D 
funds dedicated to hydrogen and fuel cells and those for concentrating solar power.  
European R&D investments dedicated to CCS , smart grids, biofuels, wind energy and 
photovoltaics are in-between €270 million and €380 million each (see Table 7). Substantially 
larger R&D investments were found only for hydr ogen and fuel cells research. This may be 
explained by the fact that this field comprises a broad diversity of different technologies from 
various ways of hydrogen production to manifold ar eas of applications fo r fuel cells, and is 
thus of interest to a large number of large and small companies with different backgrounds 
(e.g. car manufacturers; electric utilities; chemical companies and component suppliers). On 
the other hand, R&D investments in Concentr ating Solar Power are considerably below 
investments in other SET-Plan pr iority technologies due to the f act that this technology is of 
interest to a limited number of EU  countries and companies only.  
 Corporate 
R&D 
investment 
2007  
(€ million)  Public EU 
(FP6 
respectively 
EURATOM; 
avg per year) in 
€ million  Public R&D 
spending of 
EU Member 
States in 
2007  
(€ million)  (Out of 
which 
demonstra
tion in 
MS 
national 
budgets) Total 
Non-nuclear SET-P priority technologies 
Hydrogen and fuel cells 375 70 171 (24) 616 
Wind 292 11 81 (24) 383 
PV 221 27 136 (15) 384 
CCS 240 17 39 (0) 296 
Biofuels 269 13 65 (19) 347 
Smart Grids 212 14 47 (5) 273 
CSP 48 5 33 (1) 86 
SUM (non-nuclear LC techs) 1656 157 571 (88) 2385 
Distribution by investor 69% 7% 24%  100% 
Nuclear SET-P priority technologies 
Nuclear Fission reactor (mainly 
reactor related research, thus 
without safety, waste, environment) 205 4 248 (0) 458 
Nuclear Fusion 0 204 278  482 
Total SET-Plan priority energy 
technologies 1862 366 1097 (88) 3325 
Other relevant energy technology groups (including some of the above) 
Fossil Fuels n.a. n.a 240 (5)  
All Renewable Energies n.a. 94 557 (142)  
Bioenergy n.a. 31 245 (94)  
Total Nuclear Fission  550 115 587 (1) 1252 
Table 7: Summary of results 
Source: JRC-IPTS, rounded numbers 
The uncertainties stemming from the methodol ogy applied in this report do not allow a 
precise ranking of R&D investme nts by technology as uncertainties may reach the same order 
of magnitude as the actual differences be tween the R&D investments found for those 
technologies. In particular, uncertainties for co rporate R&D investments are larger for those 
technological fields that attr act large companies which are s imultaneously active in research 
 
EN 70   EN on various technologies. This is the case e .g. for hydrogen and CCS, while many of the 
companies active in e.g. wind energy research prim arily work in this area. In the latter case 
uncertainties are reduced as no assumptions w ould need to be made on how R&D investments 
are distributed across different technologies. At the same time, public R&D budgets may be 
underestimated for novel technologies such as CCS, biofuels or smart grids, thus creating an 
additional uncertainty. 
(3) Corporate R&D investments account for an important share in overall R&D 
spending for almost all non-nuclear S ET-Plan priority energy technologies. 
Component suppliers, machinery industry and specialised (a lternative) energy 
companies play an important role fo r innovation in the energy sector.  
Corporate R&D investments account for almost 70% of the total R&D spending in non-
nuclear low carbon technologies. This  hints at the active role of EU-based companies in these 
technologies and the acknowledgment of the im portance of R&D for maintaining a strong 
profile in those promising technologies.  
The assessment indicates that innovation in th e energy sector may not predominantly being 
carried out by classical energy companies such as electric utilities or oil/gas suppliers. 
Industries with elevated rese arch activities in low-carbon energy technologies include 
companies active in industrial machinery, chem icals, energy components or those that are 
exclusively active in on e area. This finding is also conf irmed by the R&D intensities (2.2%-
4.5%) found for a number of SET- Plan priority sectors, wh ich are well above those of 
companies active in the electricity sector (0.6 %) and oil and gas producers (0.3%). Their order 
of magnitude rather compares to the R&D inte nsities of producers of electrical components 
and equipment (3.4%) and industrial machinery (2.6 %). This indicates that  important parts of 
the energy research are being carried out by companies other than traditional energy 
companies (and that companies may consider the SET-Plan priority technologies as important 
research areas).  
This result is supported by previous assessm ents (e.g. Jacquier-Roux and Bourgeois, 200252). 
It is in line with the hypothesis that classi cal energy companies show a limited R&D intensity 
due to the fact that they produce a homog enous good (electricity; fuels) with price 
competition being the main competition success criterion; the energy sector could thus be 
described as a 'supplier-dominated sector' fo llowing the classification of Pavitt (1984).  
(4) Substantial investments are also dedicated to R&D in nuclear SET-Plan priority 
technologies (approx. €0.9 billion). Fusion  R&D receives high public budgets due 
to the capital investment needs of the on-going ITER construction.  
Even though all nuclear electr icity production is considered low carbon, the focus of the 
nuclear-fission related research in the SET-Plan  lies on generation IV reactors. Unfortunately, 
no estimation of the R&D investments for genera tion IV reactors could be made within the 
present report. Nonetheless, in  order to narrow down the nucl ear fission related nuclear R&D 
investments, research efforts on nuclear reactor technologies have been used as a proxy, even 
though this approach overestimates the genera tion IV-related parts of the R&D spending. 
                                                 
52 See also Kaloudis and Pedersen (2008) who state th at "Very schematically, we could claim that the 
sector is polarised between large, non-R&D process innovating incumbents on the one hand, and on the 
other hand small new entries, often R&D-based and specialised on one type of renewable energy 
technology." 
 
EN 71   EN Nuclear reactor related R&D investments tota l around €460 million, almost half of which is 
being financed by industry (45%). Both pr ivate and public R&D efforts are largely 
concentrated in France. Public sector financi ng tends to concentrate on commercially riskier, 
longer-term and pre-competitive R&D, e.g. that  currently being undert aken on generation IV 
reactor systems. 
Fusion-related energy research constitutes an exception in a threefold way. Firstly, it is 
implemented through a single Eu ropean Programme, which explai ns the high contribution of 
EU EURATOM funds. Secondly, there is currently  hardly any industry investing in fusion 
given the long time horizon of this research ar ea. Thirdly, the forthcoming construction phase 
of ITER is associated with high capital inve stments on a large scale research infrastructure 
that will be used by the global fusion research community for a long period of time. These 
factors explain the R&D investments in nuclear fusion of around €482 million in 2007 and the further increase of the budgets for the next years, all of which are publicly financed. In FP7, 
the Euratom contribution has rise n to €1947 million over 5 years.  
(5) Both public and corporate R&D investment s in SET-Plan priority technologies 
are largely concentrated in a limited number of EU Member States. For many 
technologies, the countries with high public R&D funds simultaneously account 
for the largest corporate R&D investments. 
The assessment of the present re port indicates that more than 99% of the aggregated national 
(nuclear and non-nuclear) R&D b udgets directed towards SET- Plan priority technologies 
originate from eleven Member States: Fran ce, Germany, the UK, Denmark, Italy, Spain, 
Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland an d Austria with the first three accounting for 
almost 70% of the total. At the same time, the R&D investments from companies located in 
Germany, France, the UK, Denmark, Spain and Sweden were found to make up almost 95% 
of the total corporate investments.  
(6) Public and industrial research investment s seem to complement one another.  
In many cases, the group of countries that gi ve strong support to research into a certain 
technology from public funds simultaneously show s the largest R&D investment of industry 
into that technology. This may be seen as an  indication of a posit ive correlation between 
public research support and industrial R&D investments. Such a hypothesis would be 
supported by Jaumotte and Pain (2005), who fo und that an increase of non-business R&D had 
a positive effect on both privat e sector R&D and patenting.  
Such a relation, is however not straight-forward. Without bei ng exhaustive, Member States 
may decide to support research to those technologies for which a domestic industry exists. At the same time, technologies that are considered  strategic within a na tional energy strategy 
would be supported both through push (R&D) and pull (deployment) instruments, which may trigger the creation of a domestic industry for that techno logy. In this context, Johnstone et al. 
(2008) demonstrate on the basis of  patent applications for rene wable energies that both R&D 
policies and market introduction policies have  a significant impact on the innovation activity 
in a country. 
According to the classical innovation theory, te chnologies that are clos e-to-market and thus 
require expensive pilot plants and up-scaling wo uld face larger industrial contribution, while 
technologies that are further from market are mainly publicly financed as industry would not 
 
EN 72   EN want to take the risk. At the same time, th e share of support that targets demonstration 
activities within public budge ts would be elevated for more mature technologies.  
This theory can partially be s upported by the assessment of th e present report, even if the 
scope of the report includes demonstration on ly to a very limited part (see section 2.1). 
Besides, data gaps prevent a clear proof. Nevert heless, it can be observed that the share of 
corporate R&D investments is elevated for ra ther mature technologies like wind energy and 
biofuels53. Also the publicly funded demonstration act ivities are comparably large for wind 
and biofuels. At the same time, PV, generation IV reactors and CSP expe rience relatively less 
industrial support (and a lower part of the public  R&D funds is dedicated  to demonstration). 
Following the above hypothesis, this may be explained by the fact that the la tter three 
technologies can be considered as less mature if one assumed that research in PV largely 
focuses on new technologies rather than dealing with the more mature crystalline silicon cells. 
On the extreme end, all fusion related resear ch is publicly funded. Hydrogen and fuel cell 
research somehow constitute a hybrid due to th e fact that this category comprises a wide 
variety of technologies both on the fuel production as well as on the (mobile and stationary) 
consumption side, with the individual technologies having reached different levels of maturity.  
However, the above finding must be interprete d with care. The direct comparison between 
public and corporate R&D investments faces so me uncertainties that result from likely 
differences in the definitions  of R&D between these actors  (see also section 2.1 for a 
definition of the scope of RD&D covered) . The publicly (co-) funded research budgets 
assessed in the present report probably tend to  focus on basic research and pre-competitive 
industrial research, while indust ry would be inclined to fi nance more applied research, 
including pilot projects.  
                                                
 
53 It is also elevated for CCS. This may, however, be due to an under-estimation of the public R&D 
efforts. 
 
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EN 77   EN 7. LIST OF ACRONYMS  
BERD Business Expenditures on R&D 
BES Business Enterprise Sector bn billion CCS Carbon dioxide capture and storage CSP Concentrating Solar Power DG RTD Directorate-General for Research  DG TREN Directorate-Gene ral Energy and Transport 
DG Directorate-General (of the European Commission) 
DoE Department of Energy (USA) EC European Commission  EII European Industrial Initiative EMEA Europe, Middle  East and Africa 
EPIA European Photovoltaic Industry Association ERA-NET European Research Area Networks ERMINE Electricity Research Road  Map in Europe (FP6 project) 
EU or EU-27 European Union 
EWEA European Wind Energy Association 
FP Framework Programme FP6 6
th Research Framework Programme 
GBAORD Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays on R&D GDP Gross Domestic Product GEN-IV Generation IV nuclear reactors H2/FC Hydrogen and Fuel Cells ICB Industry Classification Benchmark IEA International Energy Agency IPTS Institute for Prospective T echnological Studies (of the JRC) 
ITER International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor JRC Joint Research Centre (o f the European Commission) 
JTI Joint Technology Initiative m million MEEDDAT Ministère de l'écologie, de l'én ergie, du développement durable et de 
l'aménagement du territoire (France) METI Ministry for Economy, Tr ade and Industry (Japan) 
MS Member State of the European Union NACE Statistical Classificati on of Economic Activities  
NNE Non-nuclear Energy OECD Organisation for Economic  Co-operation and Development 
PV Photovoltaic R&D Research and Development RD&D Research, Development and Demonstration RTD Research Technology Development SETIS Strategic Energy Technol ogy Plan Information System 
SET-Plan (European) Strate gic Energy Technology Plan 
SME Small and Medium Sized Enterprises  SRS NET & EEE  Scientific Reference System on new energy technologies, energy end-
use efficiency and ener gy RTD (FP6 project) 
TP Technology Platform