Indsendt af
Syddansk Universitet
Resumé
In order to cope with the challenges of a low-energy-consumption society, innovation processes between academia and industry for new energy-effective devices have to be better linked.
This will improve innovation in the industry site but also drive the education towards more need orientation.
The implementation of energy efficient devices is related to both the development of new technologies for a radically improved functionality of the devices as well as new technologies for the production of such devices.
Both areas (development and production) are strongly linked and dependent systemic on each other and both include huge challenges but also huge opportunities for a new positioning of Danish industry and academia on an international market.
Udfordring og muligheder
Challenges:
a) the Danish society of the future has to produce net income via an increasing innovation rate: more and better products developed in shorter time;
b) the Danish society has to significantly lower its energy consumption and it has to help other countries in lowering energy consumption by producing low energy devices;
c) the complexity of state-of-the art energy products is steadily increasing;
d) energy devices have to be flexible and able to be integrated into adapted energy systems
e) the global market sets extreme pressure on production prices, nearly independent of complexity of the products
Solutions via a concerted innovation activity:
a) the innovation link between industry and academia has to be strengthened, leading to co-innovation and thus an increase of the innovation rate
b) a veritable way to lower energy consumption is the use of a smaller number of more energy efficient devices and of systems that reduce redundancy in energy using devices; energy generation and energy use have to be better linked
c) a systemic approach in the innovation process for energy devices solves the complexity issue in the initial, time consuming conception step and avoids to tackle additional complexity issues that are generated during the further steps of development
d) developing energy effective devices including the electronic support and system connection allows one to straightforwardly modify the modular device parts and thus imposes flexibility and integration
e) new production methods for energy devices have to be inherently flexible, allowing simple integration into more or less complex systems and production on relatively small numbers.
Målsætning
- An increase of co-innovation activities between academia and industry by 10 % per year
- An increase of patents that describe new energy efficient devices by 5 % per year
- The development of a rapid prototyping production line for new energy devices within the next three years - this line should be run as a test site at an industrial place but with strong involvement of accompanying universities
- A nationwide virtual center on systemic power electronic established within the next five years
- A Scandinavian center for new energy device production established together with neighboring companies and including non-academia institutions
- A Scandinavian center for reliability of radically new energy devices established within the next five years
Innovationsbehov
Strategic innovation investment:
For taking advantage of the above sketched opportunities a co-action between acdemia, industry and society is absolutely necessary, including research, development and education. This spreads from co-innovation of selected energy devices over classical innovation networks to the above sketched Scandinavian centers that in fact cross borders between company and academic world.
Innovation investment should happen on selected co-innovation activities within the framework of a broad directive (’significant energy reduction’, for example), on investment of new infrastructure for new production and new reliability testing equipment and on the two above mentioned Scandinavian centers.
Main actors are R&D groups at the universities, development, production and innovation teams at companies, research institutions (GTS) within Denmark and across borders.
De danske forudsætninger
Knowledge wise strengths:
Long lasting knowledge in power electronic systems as well as micro components at AAU, DTU and SDU. Very strong background in development of new microelectronic and micro-energy devices (from solar cells to lighting systems) both on classical (Silicon) as well as flexible (polymeric) background (AU, DTU, AAU, SDU). Innovation processes and production technologies well investigated including development of new concepts that could be initiated in the context of energy devices.
Strengths towards the industry:
Production of high technology devices (Southern Denmark) that are in need of systemic and component improvement. Production of energy generators and converters: from offshore wind to power-heat coupling. (Pre) production of polymeric, thin film or other energy devices.
Effekter og potentialer
An increased focus on co-innovation in the field of energy effective devices and systemic power electronics will lead on a rather short time scale (3-5 years) to a significant increase of adaptability and competitiveness of Danish production possibilities in all fields that are related to energy devices.
Since we are rather talking about making production more flexible than plainly automatizing production this will also have a positive effect on the employment rate. The competence level of employees will increase and the need for a new type of employees will be satisfied by the academic institutions since education will be stronger linked to industrial needs.