Energy Technology RD&D Budgets Data Explorer

The explorer displays public budgets on energy RD&D submitted to the IEA by its member or association countries. The data is available in the IEA Energy Technology RD&D Budgets database, which is updated twice a year in May and October.

To find more information on the definition of energy RD&D as well as the definition of each of the technology categories in the explorer, please refer to the IEA Guide to Reporting Energy RD&D Budgets/Expenditures Statistics. To find more information on the geographical and time coverage, details on each of the countries datasets and definitions of the products, please refer to the database documentation.

The IEA aggregates include estimates when data points are missing. European Union refers to the European Union budget under Horizon 2020, and not to the sum of national budgets of European Union member countries. The data for the United States have been estimated by the IEA secretariat for the period 2016 onwards. The large increase in 2009 is in large part due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) budgeted by the United States in that year.

While the database contains data for many countries as far back as 1974, the lengths of the time axes are automatically adjusted to the available data for a given data selection.

For any questions or feedback, please contact us at RDD@iea.org.

IEA member country public budgets for energy research, development and demonstration (RD&D) increased by 6% in 2023 to an estimated USD 26.5 billion1. This was the fifth consecutive year of increase after five years of decrease. This was the seventh consecutive year of increase.

In 2023, the United States2 spent the most on energy RD&D among IEA member countries, followed by France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada.The data also includes the European Union’s energy RD&D budget under its Horizon 2020 programme and its Innovation Fund, which was larger than that of all but the United States and France in 2023.

Public energy RD&D budget per unit of GDP varied greatly among IEA member countries, ranging from 0.0001 to 1.07 per thousand unit of GDP in 2023. France had the highest level (1.07), followed by Spain (1.00).

Over the past five decades, investment by IEA member countries in energy RD&D has become progressively more diverse. Nuclear power, which accounted for 76% of the total in 1974, declined progressively to reach 21% in 2023. RD&D budgets on fossil fuels, which were at their highest in the 1980s and early 1990s, have declined since 2013 from 14% to 5% in 2023.

Budgets for both energy efficiency and renewables expanded significantly faster during the 1990s and 2000s, from 7% each in 1990 to 23 and 22% respectively in 2010. Since then, the share of energy efficiency has increased to reach 24%, whilst the share of renewables has declined to 14%. Budgets for hydrogen and fuel cells maintained their share at 3% for the period 2012-2018 to increase to 9% in 2023.

Further IEA’s work on energy innovation informing the World Energy Investment report and the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP) complemented the collection from IEA member countries. In 2023, the global public energy RD&D budget is estimated to have reached about USD 49.7 billion, confirming the upward trend that began in 2017 after several years of decline. The growth was mostly driven by Europe, the United States and China.

Under Mission Innovation, fifteen IEA member countries and the European Union, as well as key emerging economies such as Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, pledged in 2015 to double their public clean energy R&D spending over five years. For low-carbon energy RD&D3, IEA data show that estimated global public spending rebounded in 2017 following two years of decline, and it has been on the rise since then, reaching a new high in 2023 at about USD 38.2 billion. Notably, public spending in low-carbon energy RD&D slowed down compared to total energy RD&D budgets, at about 2% year-on-year growth rate, as China reduced its share of low-carbon energy RD&D in the last year.