Linking Scientific Research and Energy Innovation: A Comparison of Clean and Dirty Technologies

Despite the urgent case for bringing new energy technologies to the marketplace, the delivery of these innovations has been frustratingly slow, often taking several decades to develop even the most promising ideas into novel technologies that achieve a significant amount of market penetration. The pathway for delivering new energy technologies is frequently discussed in the literature in a vague and aggregated way, but innovation tends to consist of a series of partially overlapping processes consisting of: (1) the production of scientific and technological knowledge, (2) the translation of that knowledge into working technologies or artifacts, and (3) the introduction of the artifacts into the marketplace, where they are matched with users’ requirements. However, relatively little data are available showing how long each of these processes takes for energy technologies. Here we combine information from patent applications with bibliographic data to shine light on the second process—that is, the translation of scientific knowledge into working prototypes. Our results show that energy technologies take an average of approximately 10 years to pass through this phase. These findings will help policymakers to devise more effective mechanisms and strategies for accelerating the overall rate of technological change in this domain.