Energy Seminar 5: Technology and Innovation Issues for a Low Carbon Economy

Introduction

The seminar discussed the challenges of stimulating innovation and deployment of new technology in progressing to a low carbon economy. The speakers considered  questions around the role and interaction of government and industry in delivering societal benefit from innovation, both in terms of practical industrial collaboration and institutions and more broadly from an economic and policy perspective.  They  drew  on the experience since 2007 of the Energy Technologies Institute as a public private vehicle for technology innovation, including its work to understand the broad technology and engineering challenges (through system modelling) and its targeted investments in accelerating new technology (for example in offshore wind engineering).

George Day

George Day is Head of Economic Strategy at the Energy Technology Institute, responsible for strategy on economics and policy across a range of low carbon technologies.  George’s current focus includes carbon capture and storage, bioenergy and light transport.  Before joining ETI in 2011, George was director of network regulation, and then director of metering and charging at Ofwat, leading many aspects of water sector regulatory policy.  During the 1990s he worked on agricultural policy reforms and projects in south Asia and Southern Africa for DFID, the World Bank and the European Commission.

Andrew Haslett

Andrew Haslett joined the Energy Technologies Institute as Director of Strategy Development in April 2008 from ICI plc, where he was responsible for the development of the Group Technology Strategy and for assisting businesses to measure and improve their innovation performance.  From the start of 2014, he has taken up the role of ETI Chief Engineer on a fulltime basis.  His experience covers a very wide range of technologies from large scale high hazard process plant engineering to developing electronic materials, and also a broad range of industrial and consumer applications.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Resources