Improve competitive standing by innovations relating to energy

Technician inspects a factory installation

Can companies improve their competitive position by investing in new, more energy-efficient technologies? Questions like this were examined in the NRP 71 project, which has now been completed.

​In the years 2012 to 2014, did companies introduce technologies which enable more energy-efficient manufacturing and improve the energy-household of their buildings or their fleets of vehicles? Have they changed their competitive standing by such measures? What is the situation regarding research, development and launch-to-market of energy technologies?

Questions such as these were presented in the NRP 71 project "Energy-related innovations" to a representative sample group of about 20,000 companies in Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

The study shows, for example, which political measures contribute most effectively to the spread of such technologies, and found that existing political measures do promote the introduction of more energy-efficient technologies, but they have hardly any effect on the intensity of such activities. The survey also reveals that in the period examined, new energy technologies were less frequently introduced in Switzerland than in neighbouring countries.