What research and development are you doing to support sustainability?

Vattenfall’s research and development provides crucial support for our strategic direction: Making electricity Clean. Our R&D work focuses on low-emitting energy generation like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), nuclear power and renewable energy sources.

R&D is especially important in the early stages of development, where breakthroughs can make a big difference to the costs of these technologies. Ocean energy, CCS, e-mobility (transportation powered by electricity) and smart grids (networks of the future) are all technologies that fit this description, and progress on these technologies is a vital part of Vattenfall’s strategy.

Ocean energy is a renewable energy source in which electricity can be generated from thermal differences, tidal streams, waves or differences in salinity.

Why and how Vattenfall engages in research and development

Technologies come into use through a process of invention, testing, improvement, and dissemination. Technologies usually impact daily lives through commercialisation: taking a new technology and transforming it into a product or service that is bought and sold. Most low-emitting energy technologies do not need to be invented – the basic concepts are already there to be commercialised. Vattenfall’s challenge is to put these concepts to use in a way that both lowers environmental impact and wins customers in a profitable manner.

Not every technology requires the same type of investment. Established, mature technologies such as wind power and traditional fossil-fuelled power plants are no longer changing rapidly and therefore attract large-scale investment in deployment, rather than spending on R&D. Other technologies are at an earlier stage of development; their operational and economic performance benefit more from fundamental research and testing.

Vattenfall has a vested interest in the progress of early stage technologies in the areas where we see the greatest potential and need for progress. Vattenfall does not develop new energy equipment products -- in our research and development we compile, analyse and evaluate all new technologies and ideas that appear to identify and initiate work on future technologies.

Our ambition is to be an excellent user of technology that is mainly developed by others, notably equipment manufacturers, in order to provide our customers with clean electricity. To achieve this, we are working together with numerous suppliers, large and small, from the laboratory stage or in demonstration or pilot projects. In these projects, we develop knowhow and provide the operator’s perspective on, for example, the usability and reliability of new systems.

Innovation is a complex phenomenon, but by targeting efforts and working with our suppliers and the research community, we hope to make the most promising technologies work in our favour.

Fact Box - Vattenfall’s spending on R&D

Total spending 2009: €127.7 million:

R&D as a percentage of turnover: