Europe’s cleantech competitiveness recipe: ‘We can’t make everything ourselves’

For Frost & Sullivan’s Jonathan Robinson, a cleantech competitiveness recipe for Europe calls for external help, striking a balance between producing in-house while retaining relationships with lower-cost, producing countries.

For the research company’s Global Power & Energy Research Director, there are simply not enough clean energy technologies in Europe for it to continue to be a competitive player.

In an exclusive interview at Enlit Europe, he said: “I have to be honest and say right now, [there are] not enough [ technologies].

“I think that’s why we see some of the policy announcements recently [stating] that we need to radically overhaul how we approach this. The basic fact is that we’re not really that ahead in most of these areas.”

According to Robinson, the key to remedying this cleantech competitiveness situation in Europe would be a balance between producing in-house while also tapping into exporting countries.

“I think Europe has to strike a balance – we can’t make everything ourselves, as much as we’d like to.

“We have to keep a relationship with lower cost producing areas around the world whilst also trying to get some centres of excellence around the world where we can really add value at the right stages.”

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Labour in the UK & Trump in the US

Sullivan’s commentary months following the appointment of Keir Starmour’s Labour in the UK and a week prior to Trump’s win into the White House – two major watersheds for the energy transition globally.

Said Robinson on the UK: “There’s a lot of big announcements coming there.

“There’s a real drive to push forward with the energy transition in the UK so massive buildout of offshore wind, massive focus on solar PV, on unlocking things there. We’re going to see a big focus on trying to get more battery storage and energy storage overall.

“I think we could see, hopefully, a case where the UK is leading the way for a change…showing other European countries that are lagging a little bit what can happen.”

When it comes to the US, although there have been fears of how Trump will interact with Biden’s game-changing IRA, for Robinson, “a lot of the elements of the transition are probably okay because they benefit Republican states in the South. So even if we should see a change in administration, I think they will retain a lot of those.

“I think we will be okay overall…but I do think we will see much more support for fossil-based generation and solutions if Trump gets in.

“But the biggest thing for the US is they drastically need a lot more electricity because the data centre market is going crazy for the amount of electricity it needs.”

Watch the rest of the interview with Jonathan Robinson for insights into cleantech competitiveness in Europe and the challenges barring cleantech uptake.