Great outcome for the EnergiCs action
The Carnot network comprises public research structures committed to developing research partnerships that promote innovation in businesses of all sizes – from SMEs to large corporations – and among socio-economic stakeholders. Carnot’s 35 000 research professionals account for 20% of all French public sector researchers and handle 55% of all R&D contracts outsourced by private companies to French public research bodies.
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The Carnot EnergiCs action aimed at supporting the competitiveness of firms in the energy sector closed in September 2021. Elisabeth Brochier, who was in charge of the operational management within the Institut Carnot Energies du futur, tells us about the results of the action and the possible follow-up.
Elisabeth Brochier is in charge of structuring energy projects within the Research, Innovation, Valorization and Europe (DRIVE) department of Grenoble INP.
The EnergiCs action: a one-stop shop for partnership research
The EnergiCs action was launched in 2015 by the five main players in public research in the fields of energy: three Carnot Institutes (Energies du futur, M.I.N.E.S and ICEEL), BRGM and CSTB. The main idea was to facilitate companies’ access to the skills of the laboratories and technological platforms of each of these organizations to enable them to increase the maturity of their technologies at all levels (research project, development of demonstrator or technology transfer). Five main themes have been selected: renewable energy sources, energy conversion and flow infrastructures, high energy efficiency uses, smart grids and cross-cutting technologies. Aimed at the network, industry, construction, transport and service sectors, EnergiCs was designed to be a single entry point for VSEs, SMEs and SMIs faced with the need to innovate and increase their competitiveness.
What is your assessment of the EnergiCs action?
Our assessment is positive. With the involvement of five major players in energy research, the entire energy chain was covered in terms of skills. In 2015, the members of the consortium were already having significant experience of partnerships with very small businesses and SMEs. Their contractual revenues amounted to €24 million with a customer portfolio of more than 270 companies. It is therefore towards these companies - outside the historical perimeter of the consortium and far from the world of research - that the EnergiCs action has deployed its commercial action plan. This approach has had an extremely visible impact on VSEs/SMEs, whose share of contractual revenues with the consortium has risen from 30% at the beginning of the project to 60% at the end. The partnership situation with the ETIs proved to be more difficult and led us to develop specific actions to intensify the support of these ETIs. We sought to better understand this type of company by analyzing their research work, their way of outsourcing R&D and their partnership practices. As a result, we have developed a database of more than 300 perfectly qualified ETIs that we can use to promote the industry through targeted marketing and sales initiatives (partnerships with laboratories, key themes in the French Recovery Plan, emerging markets).
When you say that the entire energy chain was covered, that's an extremely broad scope...
Yes, it's a very broad scope. That's why we launched a marketing initiative to characterize the 17 thematic segments within our scope in terms of market dynamics, industrial needs, research and innovation, etc. We have thus confirmed the large diversity of these segments in terms of structuring and company expectations. For example, regarding solar energy, we notice a prevalence of large companies, which, besides, are perfectly familiar with the Carnot offer. This approach led us to select five relevant segments to study for EnergiCs: smart electrical networks, high energy efficiency buildings, energy efficiency in industry, biomass energy and geothermal energy. These are all segments where Carnot has a real potential for support but lacks visibility among companies.
We then refined the approach to identify three priority markets to be addressed collectively: microgrids and collective self-consumption, E+C- buildings and districts, and green gas production. These markets are the result of deep changes in energy use and are still emerging. Nevertheless, they already show a strong economic potential and above all a significant presence of VSE / SME and ETI-type companies. We have therefore developed cross-functional projects in these markets to strengthen our platform offering and, above all, to structure joint offerings at the consortium level. Our objective was to involve innovation-oriented companies in R&D and to support them in technological developments with high TRL.
How does this translate, roughly speaking, into the three specific markets you have identified?
For each of the three markets, we have crossed the needs of companies with the technological solutions developed within the EnergiCs consortium. Whether for self-consumption, E+C- buildings and districts, or green gas production, work has begun on building an offer that fits with the expectations of companies. Regarding self-consumption, we have identified the research topics to be prioritized by the consortium and the key players to be mobilized in conjunction with the energy communities.
This work has led us to support one of the largest collective self-consumption demonstrators in Grenoble's economic activity zone. Regarding E+C- buildings and districts, we have sought to federate the semi-virtual laboratories developed by EnergiCs members to create a common bench for evaluating innovative energy systems for buildings. As for green gas, we are strengthening an existing offer by comparing two gasification technologies on the technical, environmental and economic aspects to better assist manufacturers in their choice of storage and green gas production solutions. These cross-disciplinary projects have a time frame that goes beyond the scope of EnergiCs' activities.
What other actions are carried out within the framework of EnergiCs?
We have strengthened the visibility of the consortium through privileged partnerships. This is the case with the partnership with Pexe for the organization of the annual "Research-Industry" Ecotech Energie meeting, as well as the partnership with the New Energy Systems Strategic Committee through the management of its transverse research group. These partnerships are part of the EnergiCs strategy to attract a pool of qualified companies focused on innovation. For example, the directory of new energy systems, which references both innovative companies and public research laboratories, reinforces the visibility of Carnot while constituting a commercial base of interest for the whole players.
More broadly, as a specialist in energy fields, what is your vision of the future evolution of the sector?
We are all aware of the stakes and the urgency to act for the planet. The choices we are making today towards cleaner and more intelligent energy systems are essential to meet the challenges of the energy transition. They also determine tomorrow's competitiveness gains for companies. There is therefore a huge potential in what will result from the decarbonization of the economy, both through energy savings and through in-depth changes in energy use. Decarbonized hydrogen is one of these and is now a priority area of investment for France to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
Energy networks feature another major transformation of our economy and society, with increasing decentralized production, new uses and major changes in people's lifestyles. Future networks will be more flexible and smarter, and consumers will be able to play an active role, particularly in the operation of the electrical system.
The other challenge in the race for energy transition is the collection and control of energy data, which are tomorrow’s resources. A project to set up an energy transition observatory is currently being considered in Grenoble to develop a platform of data resources aimed at studying individual behavior and collective practices in terms of energy consumption and use. A better understanding of consumption in order to modify behavior is now possible thanks to artificial intelligence, and this is the challenge of processing and collecting energy data.
