Question no 1

Business is the driver of innovation, including green innovation. However, government action is essential to shape the environment for green innovation. Several well-known market failures provide the rationale for policy actions to foster green innovation. First, if firms and households do not have to pay for the environmental damage they inflict, there will be little incentive to invest in green innovation. Second, there are important market failures specific to the market for innovation, notably the difficulty for firms to fully appropriate the returns from their investments, which typically results in under-investment in innovation. Third, the market for green innovation is affected by specific barriers, notably the prevalence of dominant designs, technologies and systems in energy and transport markets. This can create entry barriers for new technologies and competitors due to, for example, the high fixed costs of developing new infrastructures.

Using TRIZ or other tools, students are required to analyse one of the technological innovations related to energy. It is recommended that students use the world economic forum report Global Innovations from the Energy Sector 20102020 /attachedl, and/or other reports/white papers to select a technological innovation that is related to energy Students will need to write a report and prepare a poster to analyse the selected technological innovation showing their understanding and investigating of the design process that led to this innovation. Students need to identify the range of reasons (problem) that motivate/drive this innovation and how and why it becomes successful and sustainable within energy engineering sectors. The analysis should also include the future of this innovation.