Co-operative Procurement of Innovative Copiers

Panel: Panel 2: Incentives and instruments to achive greater

Author:
Bernard Aebischer, Energy Analysis Research Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)

Abstract

A group of influential buyers may create a strong enough market pull to accelerate market introduction of an innovative energy efficient fast copier.

Procurement of innovative technologies is well known in the industrial sector. Usually there are very few players involved: one buyer and few manufacturers, and the aim is mainly to increase performance and reduce costs. For several years, co-operative procurement has been used in some countries ? e. g. by Nutek in Sweden and by a consortium of utilities SERP (Super Efficient Refrigerator Program) in the U.S. in the ?Golden Carrot? Program ? as a Market-Pull measure with the aim to accelerate innovation in energy efficiency of equipment and appliances. What has hardly ever been done is a cooperative procurement at a multinational level. Going international can strengthen the market pull signal (more buyers) in traditional market segments (appliances and equipment), and open new domains for technology procurement activities in international market segments, such as office equipment and consumer electronics. International coordination is an important factor for a strong market-pull.

The challenge of the copier procurement project is an accelerated market introduction of innovative copiers with very low standby-mode and short recovery time in the medium speed market segment. If strong market pull helps to advance market introduction by two years, annual energy savings are estimated to be in the order of 100 to 1000 GWh/year during some 15 years. The savings depend mainly on the long term market penetration of this innovative copier and on the power management of the copiers with today?s technology.