Comparative technological advantages between China and developed areas in respect of energy production: Quantitative and qualitative measurements based on patents

Gupeng Zhang, Hongbo Duan, Shouyang Wang and Qianlong Zhang

Energy, 2018, vol. 162, issue C, 1223-1233

Abstract: Based on patent counts and patent values, this study presents quantitative and qualitative measurements of the comparative technological advantages between renewable and fossil-fuel fields of energy production across China, the U.S., Japan and European countries. The results show that the field of renewable energy exhibits greater technological potential and is progressing at a faster pace than is that of fossil-fuel energy. China is following most other countries by increasing investments in developing renewable energy technology, contributing to a global increase of the technological advantages of renewable energy relative to those of fossil-fuel energy. Although China is technologically disadvantaged in the fields of energy production, particularly in the qualitative aspect reflected by patent values, the technological gap between China and developed areas is shrinking. Compared with a regular mobilization of the technological advantages between different areas in the field of fossil-fuel energy, a drastic change of the technological advantage in the international dimension indicates intense competition in renewable energy technology. The results of this study provide a new reference for predicting not only the market potential of energy technology but also, the global energy technology patterns in the near future.

Keywords: Patent value; Renewal period; Renewable energy; Fossil-fuel energy; Technological advantage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421831613X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:162:y:2018:i:c:p:1223-1233

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.08.081

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().