Innovations

Technological progress is happening at an unprecedented speed. It is inspiring us to continuously adapt our service model. We want to be a modern company that rapidly responds to changing surroundings but also remembers about respect for the natural environment. Research and development activities in the area of innovations are necessary to reach business objectives, and our strategy includes involvement in the development of new technological and in their commercialisation.

Our approach to innovations

The Group will spend approx. PLN 400 million on research, development and innovations by 2020, half of which is own funds and the other half will be financed externally. The Group intends to provide PLN 50 million in financing per year, to be used in developing new technologies, products and business lines.

In supporting innovative undertakings, PGE's approach is comprehensive. PGE Ventures, a specialised corporate investment fund, is responsible for equity investments in startups, while PGE Nowa Energia is in charge of incubation and acceleration of early-stage projects related to the energy value chain. This allows quick and effective action and optimisation of the entire process. Both of the companies were founded in 2017.

PGE Nowa Energia is a special purpose vehicle tasked with working with early-stage companies, i.e. start-ups, as an accelerator, and implementing commercialisation projects. It is intended to serve as a competence centre allowing the Group to effectively identify and develop technologies and products that are part of the energy value chain or are related to it.

PGE Ventures is a company formed to aid in continuing the development of businesses and to search for new solutions on the market at stages beyond acceleration. It serves as a corporate investment fund for PGE Group. The company invests PGE's funds and raises capital from support mechanisms - the public budget, through the Polish Development Fund and the National Centre for Research and Development.

Areas of innovation - where we search for solutions

In this day and age, the development and commercialisation of innovations without working with the external environment is impossible. We are the largest entity on the energy market in Poland - we aspire to create an effective model for cooperating with Polish universities, research and development centres and businesses. We believe that a creative combination of our resources, competences and experience with the know-how of our partners will make it possible to develop innovative solutions that will let us retain the existing sources of our competitive advantage and create new ones.

We are especially interested in innovative solutions in the following areas that are tied to specific elements of PGE Group's value chain.

Strategy implementation in the innovation area

We realise that some years from now the energy industry as we know it today will be just a memory. We do not want to stay behind, which is why in our strategy until 2020 innovations are one of the key elements.

By speaking of innovations, we think about not just completely new technologies or products on the energy market but also searching for solutions that can considerably contribute to changes in our core business lines.

In 2017, we completed several dozen innovative projects, including the following most important ones: