Energy Technologies Institute

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) is an energy research, development and demonstration body established in the United Kingdom in 2007. The government set up the ETI following an announcement in the 2006 budget speech. The purpose of the ETI is to “accelerate the development, demonstration and eventual commercial deployment of a focused portfolio of energy technologies, which will increase energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help achieve energy and climate change goals”. The institute works with a range of academic and commercial bodies.

Deployment of the technologies involved, which are expected to contribute to the reduction of the UK’s carbon emissions, is expected to begin around 2018.

Commentators generally welcomed the new body as likely to make a positive contribution in the efforts to minimise climate change. At the same time, they pointed to the slow pace of government action in promoting energy conservation and implementing existing low-carbon technologies, compared to progress in a number of other European countries.