IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet

The aim of this study is to provide a nuanced understanding of the evolving trends in hydrogen technology, focusing on innovation both globally and within Sweden, and to assess Sweden's competitive position in this landscape. The primary focus is on analysing patents to evaluate the current state-of-the-art in hydrogen technology.The study reveals a significant increase in hydrogen technology patents worldwide after 2020, paralleling the rise in national hydrogen strategies and global investments. Fuel cell patents notably dominate this sector.

The United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and France emerge as the top countries in hydrogen technology. Assessing China's position is challenging due to distinct challenges associated with analysing Chinese patents related to patent standards and national strategies.Sweden shares a patent distribution profile similar to Japan and South Korea across hydrogen production, storage & distribution, and application domains, with a strong presence in the application domain (fuel cells). While the application domain remains dominant in terms of absolute patent numbers in Sweden, there has been a relative increase in patents within the production domain. This suggests a growing focus, possibly linked to Sweden's ambitions for carbon-free steel production that is based on hydrogen. Despite holding a modest share of global hydrogen technology patents relative to its economic size compared to leading countries, Sweden exhibits a competitive edge comparable to France in fuel cell technology. To sustain and enhance this advantage in the expanding hydrogen economy, Sweden must maintain its leadership in fuel cell technology while striving to strengthen capabili-ties in electrolysis and hydrogen production from biomass.

These efforts are aligned with ambitious plans for investing in hydrogen production infrastructure.Unlike some leading countries where larger industry leaders dominate, Sweden's hydrogen technology sector has traditionally been supported by smaller, specialized actors. However, there has been a noticeable shift in recent years. This shift has to be sustained. To drive significant advancements, Sweden should engage established industry leaders to leverage their market influence and operational scale. This collaboration, coupled with strategic investments in key technological domains, can position Sweden at the forefront of the hydrogen economy.

I den här studien, finansierad av Energimyndigheten, analysera styrkeområden inom svensk miljöteknikexport. Det undersöks vilka typer av miljöteknikföretag som har varit framgångsrika när det gäller export samt inom vilka miljötekniksegment och på vilka marknader dessa företag har varit framgångsrika. Resultatet visar att exporten av miljöteknik är generellt sett är störst till Europa och Asien. Energi- och resursåteranvändning är det starkaste området inom svensk miljöteknikexport, men bland företag med innovationskraft växer nya exportområden fram.

The literature indicates that there might be special conditions in the environmental technology market segment, which makes time to market longer for enterprises in this segment compared to enterprises in other industries. However, no study has been found to actually compare time to market for enterprises in the environmental technology market segment with similar start-up enterprises active in other segments.

The European Union State aid rules have several aims, two of which are relevant to this study: to bridge the investment gap/funding gap in the start-up phase until young enterprises reach the expansion phase, and to protect and improve the quality of the environment. There are, thus, twin objectives for aiding environmental technology enterprises in the early phases.

There is no exact definition of when the expansion phase begins. The threshold between micro-enterprises and small enterprises has, in this study, been used to define when an enterprise moves from the start-up phase to the expansion phase. For this study 443 eligible limited companies still active in September 2016 have been chosen as the sample population. The statistical analysis shows that an average new eligible environmental technology enterprise, which succeeds in its growth, needs more than five years after registration to (i) go from start-up phase to expansion phase and to (ii) no longer fulfil the non-time related eligibility criteria of Article 22. In average it takes 13 fiscal years (i) and 13-15 fiscal years (ii).

For the most successful enterprises turnover and balance sheet total indicate that a distinct growth phase starts around the 9th and 12th fiscal year respectively. The growth accelerates around the 16th fiscal year. Later on, the growth seems to level out for turnover, but continues for the balance sheet total. These results are in line with other studies, which show that a growth phase among Swedish enterprises seems to start around the 8th year and that high-growth enterprises have a mean of 19.8 years when they start the high-growth phase. If the ambition of public funding is to bridge the investment gap to the expansion phase for the majority of the enterprises, this study indicates that the five-year time limit may not be adequate for this purpose when applied to environmental technology.

Further studies are needed to determine if there is a more appropriate time limit that would bridge the investment gap. The growth patterns also need to be analysed more in depth. It would be of special interest to analyse further the innovative enterprises, since there are indications in the data used in this study that they have lower growth. Also, it would be of interest to compare the growth of new environmental technology enterprises with other new enterprises. It is essential to investigate if more enterprises would be expected to reach the expansion phase, if state aid is given to enterprises older than five years. Such a study is not easy to carry out, but nevertheless of great importance. Such further analysis would give valuable information to policy makers. It would be instrumental in designing the state aid system, so as to better promote the growth of start-up enterprises and the diffusion of environmental technology.

The aim of D5.1 is to provide a framework for the process to specify stakeholders’ needs and requirements in WP4 and the collection and analysis of data from the demonstration cases, with regard to organizational and social enablers for development, implementation, use and successive evaluation of SCOREwater technologies and services (WP5 and further to WP6 and WP8).  A framework contains the salient experiences, approaches, theories and perspectives in a field from which prescriptive models and other tools can be built.

This deliverable provides more knowledge on four areas with high relevance for the project: a) behavioural, organizational and legal/regulatory barriers/enablers; b) iterative user-expert development processes and relevant standards for end-user development; c) methods and state of the art for sewage sociology; and d) implementation and evaluation research. Together, these focus areas provide a background of principles that guide the implementation of the demonstration cases, in particular in terms of stakeholder engagement and adapting to user needs in WP4 and for an effective implementation of the ICT tools and for their evaluation.

In later phases in the project the receiving work packages needs to pick those tools that suits them, based on the analysis for each case study in WP1 and WP4 (and as part of WP6) and adapt them to achieve overall project goals as well as local goals. The framework is based upon a literature review of state-of-the-art knowledge and best practices, as well as consultation with partners regarding scope and presentation. The review highlights important issues to address and provide approaches to that.  The literature review highlights that water is often managed through a network of public and private actors at different levels, with different perspectives and goals, and different strategies and instruments.  There is a need to involve both the users of innovative ICT solutions as well as a broad spectrum of other stakeholders (e.g. municipal and state officials and policy makers) in technology development processes. Different involvement methods need to be chosen based on type of user or stakeholder addressed, but also based on the goals of the involvement action, or the type of knowledge the activity should bring to the process.

The literature review provides knowledge on key principles to keep in mind when engaging stakeholders.  Tools and approaches from sewage sociology will be used to design the demonstration case in Barcelona. Sewage sociology refers to the scientific use of biomarkers in waste and waste-water to measure health and environmental characteristics together with known demographic data. The overview in this report shows how sewage sociology is a powerful tool through which urban planning and health authorities should work together to improve citizen’s quality of life.  The review also discussed the issues related to implementation and evaluation of the SCOREwater technologies and services. The strategies and approaches for implementation and evaluation needs to be designed beforehand, in collaboration with developers and stakeholders. Implementation of SCOREwater technologies and services in the demonstration cases needs to be both adapted to local context and be able to provide generalizable conclusions for further dissemination and exploitation. It needs to be based upon an analysis of change mechanisms, locally for each case and generic for the water sector. Likewise, the strategy for evaluating the ICT tools needs to be designed beforehand and be integrated into the implementation efforts. The framework provides more specific advice, based upon the review on various good practices for identifying stakeholders, user groups, their needs and requirements, for an iterative development, implementation, use and successive evaluation of the SCOREwater tools. The framework is supported by a list of resources to be used when designing strategies, to be found in the annexes.