Giving sustainable energy start ups an extra boost

ANALYSIS

In just four years KIC InnoEnergy has turned itself into the largest European accelerator of sustainable energy innovations. International Innovation caught up with its Innovation Director Elena Bou at its annual business booster event, TBB.2015, to discover more about sustainable energy trends and sentiments on the continent, as well as how the organisation is creating strong connections between start-ups with big companies What is The Business Booster 2015 (TBB.2015)?

It is KIC InnoEnergy’s annual Business Booster. The event brings ventures together with industry (who usually are the first customers) with the objective of starting a conversation. From there, KIC InnoEnergy acts as a bridge between the two to facilitate the relationship and make actions happen quickly and smoothly.

In your talk at TBB.2015 you mentioned that since 2008 the world has been in an energy transition. How have economists concluded that this transition is happening?

Many things can contribute to an energy transition – technology, policy, society and the consumer, to name a few. In this case, there are two main indicators that economists are pointing to show we are currently in a transition. One is that society is changing the way it is supplying its energy – namely, the fact that the renewable industry is here. The other is the fact that consumers are using and interacting with energy in different ways.

What is important to me is that we, as normal citizens, can actually see that things are changing.

Do you mean changing in terms of how renewable energies are expanding and being more widely adopted?

Yes. There are currently huge efforts and investments to foster renewables as the way to supply the energy needs of the future. While we clearly haven’t achieved an optimum state because the maturity of the technology is still evolving (both to be more efficient and more affordable), there is substantial evidence that this trend is likely to continue. The transition is not finished yet. To see what I mean, you just have to look at the industry – previously it was extremely small, but today there are huge industries in the field that are creating a lot of really innovative jobs.

Can you expand on how the relationship between the consumer and energy is in flux?

It is becoming more distributed. This can be seen with micro generation. There are now consumers that are producing their own energy, whereas before these people would have solely consumed it. Moreover, more and more ordinary citizens are actually worried about energy and environmental issues. The more this happens, the faster the energy transition will occur.

In your talk you also mentioned that there has been an increasing social reaction to energy production and consumption. What was the main message you wanted to deliver?

My message was to industry. It was to show them that things are changing, and if they continue with their activities following business-as-usual, in a few years they will not be here.

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and are risk adverse because they want to know that the money is going to come in and when.

However, they are experienced companies that own the customer base and know the market.

However, this is not a dramatic situation. It is just that times have changed. In order to seize opportunities from this change, companies have to accept that the situation has changed and be smart enough to actually see the change as an opportunity. For instance, non-traditional players are coming to the energy industry, but has any energy industrial player thought about how they can go to the other markets? Many don’t talk about it because they have boarded themselves up in their little mountain within their world. In my talk I tried to shine a light into this mountain and share their options with them.

The way I see it, they have two options. First, they can insist on building big walls to ‘protect’ themselves from the outside world and to hide away from the reality. Second, they can open their eyes and open their boundaries. The energy industry needs to change its business model and look for new opportunities because the business models that were fine yesterday aren’t valid anymore.

High growth ventures, on the other hand, are flexible and entrepreneurial teams that are brave enough to take the risk to launch disruptive innovations onto the market. They are the ones who think outside of the box because they do not necessarily have the same pressures in terms of stakeholders. However, with a lack in experience, ventures often have a hard time capturing customers and breaking into the market – an area where big companies dominate.

How is KIC InnoEnergy trying to foster collaborations between big businesses and start-ups?

We have many ways that we are working to build and care for these collaborations. One big part of this is TBB.2015.

Through this event, we are saying to big industry: ‘Hey, you are great, but start doing something!’

What is one way that they can really find these opportunities?

On 21-22 October, they had access to 106 different innovative solutions to sustainable energy issues. Maybe not all of the innovations present will work for each industry member’s business strategy, but considering the number of innovative solutions, at least a few should.

It is by starting to collaborate with other companies such as start-ups. It really is a win-win collaboration in terms of innovation and risk.

We also hope this event will help industry reflect upon the fact that there is a whole pool of opportunities sitting in front of them – they just need to grab them.

Can you elaborate on that point?

Have you ever seen an elephant dance? That is a big company trying to do innovation. They often lack creativity

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