8. Energy technology research, development and demonstration
Key data
(2015)
Government energy RD&D spending: EUR 62 million (euro)
Share of GDP: 0.23 per 1 000 GDP units for 2015 GDP, 0.15 per 1 000 GDP units for 3 year average GDP 2013-15 (IEA median* 0.29)
RD&D per capita: USD 16.3 (IEA median* USD 16, IEA average* USD 18.4)
* Median of IEA member countries for which 2015 data are available.
Overview
The European Innovation Scoreboard 2018 considers Ireland as a strong innovator with steadily increasing performances since 2010 (EC, 2018). The scorecard highlights the strong impact that Irish research, development and demonstration (RD&D) has in terms of employment creation, where Ireland scores highest across all European Union (EU) countries. Ireland is also ranked as the overall EU leader in the innovators dimension.
Ireland’s public spending on energy RD&D per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015 was slightly below the median among International Energy Agency (IEA) countries. When using a 3 year average value for RD&D spending, Ireland ranked among the lower RD&D investors in the IEA.1 However, Ireland’s strong ranking on the EU scoreboard in relation to the impact of Irish RD&D underlines the high quality of energy RD&D invested in it also reflects a successful prioritisation exercise and commitment to achieve the highest value out of the investments made.
The objective for public energy technology RD&D is to contribute to Ireland’s transition to a low-carbon economy by: exploiting its domestic resource potential; accelerating the development and deployment of low-carbon energy technology products, processes and systems; and creating social and economic benefits. Ireland provides direct support to enterprises and academic institutions to enhance their energy and low-carbon RD&D and innovation activities.
1 In 2015, the GDP of Ireland showed exceptional growth due to some country-specific features, including the transfer of intellectual property by multinational enterprises companies. This has led to issues when measuring economic growth in the GDP (see Chapter 2 “General energy policy”).
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ENERGY SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION
IEA. All rights reserved.
8. ENERGY TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND DEMONSTRATION
Public energy RD&D spending
Ireland’s public energy RD&D was almost halved from its 2008 level to around EUR 30 million per year in 2013 and 2014 (Figure 8.1) due to the financial crisis. With a strongly recovering economy, Ireland increased its public energy RD&D in 2015 to, and reached a 3 year average of EUR 40 million for 2013-15.2
Increased investments reflect the government’s vision that strong energy RD&D capacities are required for the move towards a low-carbon economy and to bring associated long-term benefits to Irish society. This trend is expected to continue in coming years in line with government policy.
The Irish government has adopted an overall research and development (R&D) intensity target for Ireland of 2.5% of the gross national product (GNP) by 2020. The overall R&D intensity rate stood at 0.3% of the GNP in 2017 (DBEI, 2018). RD&D intensity is measured as the RD&D budget as a percentage of the GNP.
Research on renewable sources of energy received the largest share of the budget in 2015, accounting for 44% of the total energy RD&D funding, followed by cross-cutting technologies with 30%. The rest was spent on power and storage technologies (23%), energy efficiency (3%), and small shares for fossil fuels and hydrogen and fuel cells.
Figure 8.1 Government energy RD&D spending by category, 2008-15
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70 |
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60 |
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30% |
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50 |
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40 |
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23% |
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30 |
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3% |
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20 |
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44% |
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10 |
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0 |
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2008 |
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2015 |
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Other cross-cutting
technologies
Other power and storage
technologies 
Energy efficiency
Renewables
Fossil fuels*
Hydrogen and fuel cells*
Nuclear*
Nearly half the energy RD&D funding in Ireland was allocated to renewable energy projects in 2015.
* Negligible.
Source: IEA (2018), Energy Technology RD&D 2018, www.iea.org/statistics/.
2 Based on data uncertainties and a newly developed methodology for collecting RD&D data, Ireland decided to use a 3-year average of EUR 40 million in 2013-15, as an indicator of the latest energy RD&D spending.
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