At the end of March, twelve prominent professors were invited to Västerås, Sweden by ABB for the first of four symposiums to address the role of energy efficiency solutions in the context of climate change. Together with senior researchers from ABB Corporate Research, they spent two days delving into research challenges related to energy efficiency in industry, transportation, and buildings, examining technology and design processes, as well as business models.
This is the first time such a symposium has taken place on this scale. Working on energy efficiency is crucial for sustainable development. For ABB Motion, it is important to be an enabler for collaboration between industry and academia, as per Matti Laitinen, Motion Business Research Manager, ABB.
According to Tomas Kåberger, Professor of Industrial Energy Policy at Chalmers, it is important to spread awareness about the opportunities. It is frustrating when energy-efficient technologies are rejected even though they offer lower costs. They see the investment cost but ignore the operation cost. Hope there is a better dialogue between technology suppliers and customers, leading to better procurement.
Energy efficiency is one of the most strategically important areas to address in the energy transition. At the symposium, teams have worked to find ways forward where they can contribute to society together. And this two-day exercise has been really productive, as per Cathy Yao Chen, Electrification Business Research Manager, ABB.
All participants contributed to building on and further developing each other’s ideas. Together they have highlighted the importance of working with energy efficiency, finding joint research projects and influencing both national research financing and the EU’s research agenda to invest more in an area where there is competitiveness and achieve climate goals, shares Mikael Dahlgren, Head Research, ABB Sweden.
The twelve leading researchers came from Aalto University, Chalmers University of Technology, Imperial College, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Lunds University, Malardalens University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the University of Nottingham.