Sweden

Highlights in 2018
Highlights in 2018

 

Mission Innovation impact case study

The Avoided Emissions Framework is an initiative to support technologies, system solutions and companies that deliver solutions that help facilitate rapid reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in society.

The framework will support an accelerated uptake of disruptive solutions by supporting increased transparency regarding actual and potential GHG reductions making it easier to identify, support and invest in the next generation of solution providers. The framework will also support a psychological and structural shift from a problem and risk agenda with focus on only incremental improvements in existing systems, to a solution and opportunity agenda that also includes disruptive change.

MI was launched at the perfect time when the urgency to reduce global GHG emissions, the appetite for new innovative partnerships and realisation that we have entered a 4th industrial revolution converged. MI therefore became the perfect body for this kind of new global tool that requires agile thinking, a cooperative atmosphere and a strong focus on concrete results. Support from MI has laid the foundation for international collaboration and fostered sufficient momentum for the framework to establish itself in a relatively short time.

The activity is not itself a clean energy product or service, but an analytical tool intended to help with financing and development of solutions. Therefore, it has no direct results on emissions, technology cost, employment or access, but assists solution providers, investors and policy makers to achieve such results. For MI-4, solutions with more than 2 gigatons of potential reductions/year by 2030 have been identified and new collaborations established. Above all, the initiative has helped increase the visibility of a new generation of clean energy innovation and helped policy makers and investors see clean energy innovation as an opportunity and an investment.


Update on clean energy innovation policies and strategies

The Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) has set the following goals:

  • The Swedish electricity supply should be 100% renewable by 2040.
  • The energy use should be 50% more efficient by 2030 in relation to 2005, in terms relative to the Gross Domestic Product.
  • There should be net zero Swedish emissions of GHG to the atmosphere in 2045; with negative net emissions after 2045.

The new government formed in January 2019 rests on an agreement between four political parties that includes a number of action items including:

  • It should be made easier and more profitable to invest in renewable energy for your own use, e.g. in solar PV and solar heating, or in sea-based wind power.
  • The infrastructure for charging and for filling vehicles with fossil free fuels are to be expanded.
  • The sale of petrol- or diesel-powered cars should not be allowed after 2030.
  • Taxes on work and commercial activities are to be lowered in exchange for increased environmental taxes.
  • An investment support for pilot plants achieving negative climate emissions will be implemented.

Sweden was the main host of the MI-3 Ministerial meeting in Malmö in 2018.


Major innovation initiatives in 2018/19

The Swedish National Energy Research and Innovation Programme is administered by the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) and is, as a whole, focused on clean and efficient, sustainable energy solutions, products and services. The budget for 2018 was about 1,5 billion SEK. Within the research and innovation (R&I) programme, small and medium sized companies are given support for product development and innovation through soft loans, grants with royalty agreements, and grants. Twenty of the companies supported have subsequently been introduced on the stock exchange, representing a total value of more than 12 billion SEK.

The Swedish doubling commitment relates to the efforts within the programme on long-term, bottom-up, clean energy research. The baseline was established as the average for the years 2013 – 2015, amounting to 134 million SEK. The estimate for 2019 is about 250 million SEK, and the prognosis for 2020 is well above a doubling.

In addition to the dedicated National Energy Research and Innovation Programme, there are many other public R&I efforts related to clean energy in Sweden. These data are collated and reported to the International Energy Agency energy research, development and demonstration database.

Furthermore, there are also resources made available for commercialisation and product development, e.g. through the Swedish Energy Agency and the GreenTech Venture Capital Fund.

The government initiative of five Innovation Part­nership Programmes announced in last year’s country survey are still being implemented, as well as the two ten-year national research programmes on Climate research and on Spatial Planning/Smart Cities.

Several conferences and workshops to connect innovative companies with venture capital have been arranged.


Major activities in support of the Innovation Challenges in 2018/19

  • Sweden and Austria are planning a pilot multilateral call for proposals in the field of Storage Systems and Storage integration in Autumn 2019; with relevance for the IC1, the IC7 and the IC8.
  • A multilateral European R&D call was launched and communicated during the MI-3 in Malmö 2018. 24 transnational projects supporting IC1 and IC7 with a total public funding of €32 million has been selected. The projects will start during 2019.
  • Sweden is developing the Avoided Emissions Framework as a tool for assessing the impact of clean energy innovations.
  • Sweden is running the Challenge from Sweden programme which launches a series of competitions, events and other initiatives to implement innovation procurement, testing and implementation of clean energy solutions.

Other Mission Innovation related activity in 2018/19

The Swedish company Climeon has entered a partnership with the Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The SEA has supported Climeon in developing technology for low-temperature heat power production; e.g. from waste or geothermal heat.

The Swedish company Exeger has entered a partnership with, and received funding from, the SoftBank Group Corp. The SEA has supported Exeger in developing and manufactures solar cells that work efficiently in ambient light conditions with the potential to enable self-powered devices.

The winners of the earlier referenced A Challenge from Sweden competition on local energy systems (Innoenergy, Sweden; Ferroamp, Sweden; Amzur, USA; and Certh, Greece) have now had the opportunity to test their solutions in four different locations, demonstrating potential for providing system services to the grid.

The Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day was held in Stockholm on 14 February 2019. The event combined a focused outlook on sector growth opportunities and successful investment strategies with carefully selected Sustaintech company presentations. More than 200 investors participated.

A Cleantech Forum conference will have been held in Stockholm on the 21 – 23 May 2019. This is the second time the Cleantech Forum has been held in Sweden, the first being in 2014.

Sweden, together with Canada and members of the World Energy Council, participates in the German Start-up Energy Transition (SET). The SET is a leading international platform supporting innovation in energy transition. SET is implemented with the conviction that sustainable energy solutions and mitigating climate change are directly linked to a bridge between inventive business models and political will. Powered by the German Energy Agency (dena) in cooperation with the World Energy Council (WEC), the initiative connects start-ups, international venture capitalists & investors, and partners in the public sector. As a global platform, it links like-minded people from various fields to promote innovation and make global energy transition a success.

Sweden increased its application from 3 start-ups to 24 and reached the top 4, after Germany (53 start-ups), USA (26 start-ups) and Canada (25 start-ups). Sweden had 3 finalists, all three supported by the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA).

Sweden and the SEA have launched a Cleantech Hub in New York, USA; for establishing an soft-landing program for our SEA portfolio companies from Sweden, close and nearby BEVs HQ in Boston. The Focus is start-ups with a proof of concept and a verified solution.


New collaborations

Comfort & Climate Box
Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, European Commission, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, IEA HPT & ECES collaboration with IC7
Integrated systems consisting of heat pumps and storage are an important technological option to accelerate the use of renewable energy for heating and cooling. By combining heat pumps and storage, several issues may be tackled, such as grid load balancing; increased self-usage of renewables; optimizing economics, CO2, fuel use and supply security. Commercial development of these packages is progressing slowly. This Combined Annex will help accelerate market development. The goal of this Combined Annex is to develop and disseminate knowledge, evaluate prototypes and coordinate field tests involving HP/storage-packages in existing buildings.
Sectors: public-private
Type of collaboration: research and innovation
Duration: Q4 2018 to Q2 2021
Funding: 530 000 EUR (Sweden’s Budget)
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Joint Programming Platform Smart Energy Systems (JPP SES)
Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom (total 30 funding partners counting non-MI partners). Ongoing discussion with China, India, Morocco, Chile, Mexico.
Sectors: public-private
Type of collaboration: research, development, demonstration and innovation
Duration: Q2 2018 (at Malmö MI-3) to earliest 2025 (tentative)
Funding amount: 
32 MEUR granted in 2019, approx. 125 MEUR in 2025, approx. 20 MEUR per year
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Battery 2030+
European Union countries
Sweden participates in EU Large-scale Research Initiative on battery research.
Sectors: public-public, public-private
Type of collaboration: large-scale, long-term research
Duration: Started in 2019
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SUNRISE
European Commission, 8 MI members
Sweden participates in EU Large-scale Research Initiative on the production of fuel and chemicals from sunlight.
Sectors: public-public
Type of collaboration: large-scale, long-term research
Duration: 2019 to 2020 (first stage)
Funding amount: 
1M€ from the European Commission
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Accelerate Energy Summit
About 80 members from 30 countries
The Accelerate Energy Summit (AES) is the largest annual gathering of leading clean energy incubators and accelerators from around the world. New Energy Nexus has over 80 members in 30 countries, and AES is our flagship event. Our goal is to accelerate the global energy transition by increasing peer collaboration and knowledge sharing between energy startup supporters around the world. In 2016, New Energy Nexus together with Asian Development Bank (ADB) hosted a group of 25 existing and up and coming clean energy incubators and accelerators in Manila. In 2017, the Accelerate Energy Summit was hosted in Shanghai with partners including IncubatEnergy, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), ADB and World Bank, and last year AES was in Los Angeles, California and co-hosted with IncubatEnergy as part of the EPRI Electrification 2018 conference. This year, AES is coming to Stockholm, Sweden, with the support of The Swedish Energy Agency, World Wildlife Fund for Nature, EIT Climate-KIC and The Cleantech Group. The conference will be held the days before the start of Cleantech Forum Europe.
Sectors: public-private
Type of collaboration: 2019 to 2020
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