Competitive and sustainable integration of RE using product development tools [renewable energy]

Renewable energy (RE) is at a level that allows successful installation from a technical and economical point of view. Handable tools to ensure easy installation, including social factors, in the design and decision process have to be established. Seldom the energy supply of a region is a result of a subsequent market driven product development process but mostly it is the result of pure chance. The steps within product development are, at a cursory consideration, not really suitable to the implementation of RE because the implementation is not a design process in the common sense of the word. Different tools to ensure the success of a design process in product design have been developed by various researchers. As result of the current work, the authors have tried to adapt these tools to develop strategies for RE implementation. Different tools to transform the local and regional stakeholder requirements and demands into quantified energy scenarios and into requirement specifications for single projects have been developed. The results derived from these methods have applied in different European regions and their success has been compared.