The Energy Technologies Institute is a UK based company formed from global industries and the UK government. It brings together projects that create affordable, reliable, clean energy for heat, power, transport and associated infrastructure.
The ETI will demonstrate technologies, develop knowledge, skills and supply-chains, inform the development of regulation, standards and policy, and so accelerate the deployment of affordable, secure low-carbon energy systems from 2020 to 2050.
It is a public-private partnership between gloal industries - BP, Caterpillar, EDF, E.ON, Rolls-Royce and Shell - and the UK Government.
It is a public private partnership that thinks and acts strategically with a view of the whole UK energy system.
Commentators have generally welcomed the new body as likely to make a positive contribution in the efforts to minimise climate change [1]. At the same time, they have pointed to the slow pace of government action in promoting energy conservation and implementing the many low-carbon technologies that already exist [2], compared to progress in a number of other European countries [3].
Contents |
In addition to initial funding for the ETI, the Department for Business is to provide funds of £50 million each year over a period of 10 years starting in 2008-09. The Government expects that the separate Energy Research Partnership [1] will raise matching funding from commercial organisations.
The Energy Technologies Institute is a private sector organisation, established as a unique private-public partnership, funded equally by member companies and the UK Government. It is governed by an Executive Board. Each private sector member has one seat on the ETI Board.
By bringing together the efforts and investments of both private and public sectors, and by focusing on key energy challenges with a new level of scale and ambition, the Energy Technologies Institute has the potential to achieve step change advances in the demonstration of low carbon technologies. Our Member companies’ expertise, resources and the potential route to commercialisation that they offer is one of the strengths of the ETI.
Five objectives have been set for the institute:
The ETI currently has the following programme areas:
The ETI also has a distinctive Energy Systems Model which gathers data from a diverse range of global industries, including the ETI’s six members. It incorporates novel features including probabilistic functions to reflect uncertainty and spatial mapping to identify a mix of potential energy sources and the cost implications and timings associated with implementing them.
The ETI focuses on the WHOLE energy system and provides strategic direction for the UK, including the interactions within the energy system for optimisation. It does not focus on one particular area but across the spectrum of heat, power, transport and crucially the infrastructure that links them.
The ETI operates at large scale and is tasked with developing technologies that will help the UK meet its legally binding 2050 carbon reduction targets under the Climate Change Act. It delivers complex engineering projects by reducing risk through the shared expertise and experience of its industrial members. develops large scale engineering solutions that are not being provided by individual companies and harnesses the expertise of large corporates along with the ideas and innovation of SMEs and academics.
Historically, public sector support for energy research and development in the UK has been provided by a variety of bodies with little co-ordination between them. Problems experienced as a result of this included poor continuity of funding, and the availability of funding for certain parts of the research-development-commercialisation process but not others. Funding levels have also been low by international standards.
In September 2007 it was announced that the Midlands Consortium had been chosen to host the Institute. The Consortium comprises the Universities of Birmingham, Loughborough and Nottingham with financial support from Advantage West Midlands and the East Midlands Development Agency. The hub of the ETI will be based at Loughborough University, on the Holywell Park area of the campus, at the heart of the University's Science and Enterprise Park, and brings with it up to 50 new jobs in the region.[4]