Technology Innovation Monitoring (TIM) for mapping emerging photovoltaics and offshore wind energy technologies

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is currently developing TIM (Tools for Innovation Monitoring, www.timanalytics.eu), a monitoring system for tracking the evolution of established and emerging technologies. The TIM-Energy tool developed in this context is based on semantic analysis, powerful data mining and visualization of complex data sets; and holds the promise to complement expert knowledge by identifying and monitoring emerging trends in energy technologies.

The identification of future trends will become a decisive factor in retaining Europe's leading role in global development and large-scale deployment of low-carbon technologies, which is a key priority of the research, innovation and competitiveness dimension of the Energy Union.

This report provides guidance and illustrates possible ways of applying the bibliometric analysis capabilities of TIM to respond to research-for-policy questions on energy technologies. It presents the work done within the JRC on using TIM for identifying and analysing emerging photovoltaic and offshore wind energy technologies.