The Strategic Research Agenda is a planning document defining directions and potential of the research and development and innovation activity (R&D&I) undertaken by TAURON Group. The aim of the implementation will be the optimisation of the R&D&I activity carried out, its orientation towards the change in the structure of revenue in the Group, so that the level of 25% of revenue from new business, indicated in the new strategy, is achieved by TAURON Group by 2025.
Even now TAURON is distinguished on the market of new product solutions. We were the first to introduce the service of electrician and service provider which has gained great popularity. However, we are already searching for future solutions. We want to be associated with the most modern solutions such as digitals, smart home and energy efficiency – Filip Grzegorczyk the President of the Management Board of TAURON Polska Energia stresses.
The objective of the Strategic Research Agenda (SAB) is to translate the goals of the new strategy into the “roadmap” of the research and development and innovation activity as well as communicate development needs of TAURON Group to internal business areas and external entities, i.e. universities, technology providers, Start-Ups. SAB will support the process of selecting specific projects and rejecting others as well as enable to indicate the optimum time horizon for specific areas. Finally, it will enable effective dedicating of financial, human or material resources broken down into specific portfolios of projects.
The assumptions and the methodology of creating the Strategic Research Agenda were confirmed during the workshop with deans of technical universities collaborating with the Group, held in January this year. Besides the TAURON 2050 vision developed at that time, this enabled focusing of the Agenda on issues with the highest significance in terms of the future development of new businesses in TAURON Group.
The Strategic Research Agenda will be implemented through internal R&D&I projects as well as through Tauron MAGENTA company within relations with Start-Ups.
New research and development projects
TAURON Group carries out several R&D&I projects, including co-financing from external, national and EU sources (e.g. NCBR, Horizon 2020, RFCS, KIC InnoEnergy).
Only within the 1st call for proposals under the Research Programme of the Energy Sector (PBSE) companies of TAURON Group submitted 18 applications - the highest number among national energy groups.
The applications for the total amount of almost PLN 100 million refer to practically each area of TAURON Group activities. All project proposals submitted by TAURON went through positive formal evaluation; at present, NCBR is in the process of assessment of their content.
In the context of clients, new products and businesses, two projects are particularly worth highlighting, executed with the support of the Horizon 2000 programme, i.e.
Projects for low emission coal-fired power generation
One of the research and development areas currently under more intensive development in the Group is the area called “POWER to GAS”. Projects in this scope support building low emission coal-fired power generation. Owing to the use of surplus energy, processing of CO2 captured from coal-fired power units to Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) will be possible.
Consequently, the number of outages of power units during night time lows will be limited. On the other hand, beneficial use of CO2 from coal-fired power units will reduce air emission of this gas - a major step forward in building low emission coal-fired power generation.
In the POWER to GAS area the CO2-SNG project (co-financed by KIC InnoEnergy) is currently under implementation, with TAURON Wytwarzanie as its leader. One of the projects submitted to NCBR under the 1st PBSE call for proposals shall develop and be complementary to this project.
Innovative TAURON Magenta
In February this year, a special purpose vehicle was established in TAURON Group with the goal of creating innovative product solutions in cooperation with Start-Ups. The company deals, inter alia, with the preparation of projects in the scope of smart technologies for home and solutions for transport supplied with electricity.
The company coordinates the cooperation of TAURON with the Pilot Maker programme - it is the programme of pilot implementation of specific solutions derived from Start-Ups in companies of TAURON Group - http://pilotmaker.pl/
We put great emphasis on the highest value of TAURON Group which is the base of over five million clients. We hope that within our cooperation with Start-Ups we will manage to identify new products and services, mainly in the customer area, which we will be able to offer to our clients. Tauron uses an innovative approach created in Start-Ups whereas young entrepreneurs receive the opportunity to implement their own innovative products and solutions – Jarosław Broda – Vice-President of TAURON Polska Energia explains.
For the first time in Poland, a large energy company launched an efficiently operating programme of cooperation between Start-Ups and the Corporation - http://media.tauron.pl/pr/338331/tauron-inwestuje-w-rozwoj-startupow
