Mapping energy-efficiency technological advances in home appliances

Alessandro Palma and Nicolò Barbieri ()

No 215, SEEDS Working Papers from SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies

Abstract: The present study uses an original dataset on four large energy-efficient appliances and provides a methodology for: i) mapping components related to energy efficiency improvements; ii) mapping their evolution over time; iii) testing the technological fungibility of these components. Our analysis model exploits an original patent selection process and the concept of technological relatedness using co-occurrence analysis of patent classes as input for Self-Organising Maps, an unsupervised artificial neural network able to represent high-dimensional data in visually attractive and low-dimensional distance-based maps. The results confirm the pervasive nature of energy efficiency to be nested in many technological components. In addition, we show that a dematerialisation process has affected the evolution of energy efficiency technologies over time, in a technological space characterised by a high level of complexity and variety.

Keywords: energy efficiency; Self-Organizing Maps; patent analysis; home appliances; ICTs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O33 Q41 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2015-01, Revised 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp and nep-ene
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http://www.sustainability-seeds.org/papers/RePec/srt/wpaper/0215.pdf First version, 2015 (application/pdf)
http://www.sustainability-seeds.org/papers/RePec/srt/wpaper/0215.pdf Revised version, 2015 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:srt:wpaper:0215

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