PGE/REWE 2015

Sessions Speakers Exhibitors Products Press Releases Show Specials Floor Plan

New Ways of Collaboration to Enhance Innovation in Power Industries (Room D201-D202, Elicium, Second Floor)

Power industry is strongly growing in emerging markets, although it faces stagnation in the developed areas, particularly in Western Europe. Maintaining the position and the knowhow of the European industries as a whole is a challenge. Large multinational companies are well organised to deal with the market evolution but small and medium size companies are sometimes left with too small a market to grow and to develop innovation. The Vallée de l’Energie has been created a few years ago at the initiative of General Electric, Alstom, EDF and several companies of various sizes working as an ecosystem in Eastern part of France. The cluster has so far developed new strategies to develop the visibility of small and medium companies, bring new opportunities to them (exhibitions like PowerGen, WNE,,, and specific missions in Poland, Vietnam…). Currently an ambitious project has been started with the creation of the Dynamene company that provides facilities to test innovative equipment with a multi-fluid platform and a fully instrumented industrial site able to experiment in full size the proposed solutions for energy management, energy storage (fly wheel, power to hydrogen..) and other smart grid innovations. Innovation is the main lever, and the Universities and Laboratories are associated to the development of the initiatives, including the training of specialists in the energy domain. The paper will explain the strategy of the cluster, the contribution of its members and the organisation of the programs that are supported by European and French public funding. It will also provide examples of actions undertaken with the support of the member companies and universities.