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PARIS, France, September 14, 2005 (Refocus Weekly)
Only two of the 25 member nations of the
International Energy Agency are not involved in research into renewable
energies and hydrogen.
As of March, the IEA had 40 implementing agreements with a total of
58 representatives from member countries and 14 non-member countries, as
well as the European Commission and 16 sponsors. The United States was
the most active with participation on 35 agreements, followed by Japan
with 31 and Sweden with 24, according to ‘Energy Technologies at the
Cutting Edge’ released by the OECD agency.
Of the seven categories, the most active was ‘renewable energies &
hydrogen,’ which had 111 representatives, ahead of second-place ‘end use
buildings’ with 72 and ‘fusion’ with 22. The renewables category also
had 18 non-IEA participants and eight from the EC.
There were 19 participants on the implementing agreement for
photovoltaics, with 18 on wind, 17 each on solar heating and bioenergy,
15 on hydrogen, seven on geothermal and six each on hydropower, and
ocean energy. No IEA country was active on all nine agreements, although
five countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the U.S.) were
active on seven agreements.
The Implementing Agreement for Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (RETD)
is nearing completion, but eight countries have expressed interest in
extending the program of work, according to the report.
“Now, more than ever, the international community is looking to
technology to help meet the pressing challenges of energy security,
environmental protection, economic growth, and the need for clean energy
technologies,” says Claude Mandil of IEA in the foreward. “International
co-operation is essential if we are to find solutions to these
challenges.”
The implementing agreements are designed to provide a forum for
cooperation, and involve “several thousand scientists and experts” from
countries to serve as the “engine room of the international energy
technology collaborative programme.”
All key new technologies of energy supply and end use are addressed,
with the exception of nuclear fission which is handled by another OECD
agency, the Nuclear Energy Agency. Within the IEA, the renewables
category does not cover geothermal heat pumps, which are positioned
within the buildings category.
The report provides a status report on research in each of the
technologies, such as the new computer code developed and tested in
Mexico to model the liquid-gas equilibrium and calculate thermodynamic
properties of geothermal fluids, and guidelines for determining the
energy available in a given sea condition. It also addresses a number of
policy issues, such as the “vision that the solar thermal potential can
provide 10-15% of the total energy demand in the OECD countries by 2025"
and to “create the conditions conducive for new plants and to expedite
the building of 5,000 MWe of CSP worldwide over the next ten years
through international collaborative efforts.”
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