The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has launched a new online platform called INSPIRE, or the International Standards and Patents in Renewable Energy platform. The project is the first of its kind, and provides information on nearly 400 international standards and more than 2 million patents for renewable energy technology.

“The INSPIRE platform provides a strategic window into the innovation and growth taking place in the renewable energy sector,” said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin. “It consolidates vast collections of renewable energy patents and standards, which can foster collaboration between innovators, spur improvement through product comparison and benchmarking and help identify partners, matching domestic energy needs to innovative energy solutions.”

The project came to fruition with a partnership between IRENA, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The platform features several features including a standards section that allows users to search through a database of more than 400 internationally used standards and generate reports as needed. It also explains what standards are, how they can be used and why they are important for quality assurance, investor confidence and technology trading. The patents section houses the world’s most comprehensive global patent database for carbon mitigation technologies, the EPO’s PATSTAT, which contains nearly two million patent documents.

“The INSPIRE platform demonstrates the role of the global patent system as a support for innovation in renewable energy, encouraging research and development in technologies to serve modern energy needs while addressing climate change,” added EPO President Benôit Battistelli. “INSPIRE also showcases the role of patent information, which provides valuable high-level information to advise policy makers on the renewable energy sector.”

IRENA said the combination of resources on INSPIRE will help users analyse various aspects of renewable energy policy and innovation, and the platform can help indicate the effectiveness of policies to promote renewable energy innovation through the analysis of trends in patent activity.