Intellectual Property Protection Management System
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In connection with its functioning as part of a constantly developing economy based on knowledge and new technologies, TAURON Group, as a conscious owner of the innovative solutions and creative intangible assets, is shaping its corporate policy with respect for intellectual property rights in mind. TAURON Group is protecting and managing the intellectual property developed within the Research and Innovation Area in a systemic way, in particular through adequate regulations aimed at various groups of its recipients, i.e.:
- TAURON Group’s Intellectual Property Policy – a non-group regulation targeted at our external counterparties,
- TAURON Group’s Intellectual Property Management Principles – an intra-corporate regulation governing intellectual property issues at the Capital Group level.
The provisions of TAURON Group’s Intellectual Property Policy assume the compliance with the legal regulations governing the intellectual property issues, as well as indicate the directions and actions that the Group’s subsidiaries should take in this regard, as part of their activities.
TAURON Group’s Intellectual Property Management Principles, in turn, is a document introduced at the Capital Group level that contains provisions, common to all of the processes and instructions of conduct (operating procedures) related thereto, dealing with the subject of protection and management of intellectual property at TAURON Group (for example the definitions and directional guidelines). It is the overarching documentation for two specific processes:
- process of filing for inventions, utility models or industrial designs,
- employee rationalization process.
Issues related to obtaining protection for the inventions, as well as other technical objects of industrial property, are regulated by TAURON through an adequate process entitled „Filing for Inventions, Utility Models or Industrial Designs” and a manual (instruction, procedure) related thereto. These documents indicate a specific scheme of procedures and define templates of agreements necessary for the proper acquisition of the rights and protection of the industrial property objects.
On the other hand, the process entitled „Rationalization” and the instruction (manual, procedure) on dealing with the rationalization ideas at TAURON Group related thereto, regulate the rules related to the acquisition and remuneration for the innovations originating from the employees (internal innovations). In accordance with the above mentioned Group’s regulations, the rationalization ideas are any ideas for an improvement of a technical and technological nature that come from our Employees.
TAURON is managing the Group’s intellectual property in a conscious and responsible manner. TAURON’s goal is to provide the protection of the intellectual property rights (IPR) that is carried out, in particular, through the proper acquisition of the intellectual property rights, as well as their licensing, the protection of the corporate (trade) secrets and combating the unfair competition.
Actions taken and results achieved
The protection of intellectual property is an important element of TAURON Group’s research, development and innovation (R&D&I) activities. The activity, the importance of which is highlighted in TAURON Group’s Strategy, is reflected in the Strategic Research Agenda (SAB), adopted in 2018 and updated in 2022.
Within TAURON Group, as part of the Research and Innovation Area, the portfolio management of the R&D projects is applied, ensuring a comprehensive approach to the implementation of the tasks that fulfill the innovative solutions indicated in the Strategy in support of TAURON Group’s transition towards climate neutrality.
SAB is a document that precisely describes the directions for the development of the innovations and provides a more detailed elaboration of the Strategy. The document is composed of four research portfolios:
- Customer and his/her needs,
- Intelligent distribution,
- Green energy,
- Sustainable heat.
Each portfolio sets the directions for the research and development projects. As part of the directions, the subject areas are defined for the selected detailed research areas that are important from the point of view of the Group’s development. Such a structure of the SAB supports the selection of the specific projects and the rejection of others, as well as allows for the optimal allocation of the financial resources. Thus, the R&D and innovation activities at TAURON Capital Group are implemented and developed based on the complete and detailed assumptions of a strategic nature – with the clearly defined goals and ambitions.
Due diligence procedures and internal regulations
The implementation of SAB takes place on several levels, forming the so-called innovation ecosystem, including in the pro-climate context. The procedures and good practices applied, reinforcing the synergies of the various elements of the ecosystem, are deployed in accordance with the technical qualification criteria indicated in the EU regulations. In this way, TAURON Group’s contribution to climate change mitigation is made in harmony with the Group’s development, while ensuring respect for the „do no significant harm” principle.
In addition to the traditionally understood research and development activities (research and development projects, cooperation with the scientific units and innovative business partners), the Group is expanding the cooperation with the start-ups. TAURON is conducting a proprietary accelerator program called TAURON Progres that enables innovative companies (startups) to pilot the new solutions in the real world conditions. The best ideas submitted are tested on TAURON’s infrastructure, as well as offered support from the subject matter experts and analysts. The cooperation with the startups is also an opportunity to further develop the project portfolio of the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) type fund – EEC Magenta.
The research and investment projects aimed at ensuring the reliability of the electricity supply and promoting the sustainable development within the Group and by TAURON Group are illustrated in table below.
| Investment project categories | Investment project type – investment project name (broken down into categories in the table) | Investment project description | Costs (incurred in conjunction with the implementation of the investment project) PLN |
| Renewable energy technologies | Ultra fast forecasting of the generation and regulation capacities of the photovoltaic sources | The goal of the project is to carry out industrial research and development works aimed at developing a unique system for ultra fast forecasting of the electricity production from the photovoltaic installations, allowing the forecasting of electricity production over a time frame of less than one hour, using a combination of monitoring of the current weather conditions by the measuring devices and the high quality HD cameras and the numerical weather forecasts. |
295 864 |
| TOTAL COSTS IN THE CATEGORY | 295 864 | ||
| Electricity distribution | Distributed energy 2.0 operating model – self-balancing power grid are | The goal of the project is to verify the technologies that would enable setting up of local power sub-grids, called micro grids. As part of the project, a pilot micro grid installation has been built and is being tested in terms of: maintaining the balance and continuity of power supply, quality of electricity, operational safety from the perspective of the consumers, devices and the grid, as well as the economic aspects of the entire solution. Based on that, guidelines are being developed enabling the interoperation of microgrids with the electricity distribution grid. The result of the Project’s implementation will be both a fully functional and tested pilot installation (operating in the actual conditions) as well as the detailed technical documentation of the solution, that would allow for its implementation both on the Polish as well as on the foreign market. |
3 152 005 |
| Flexible Distribution – a prototype of a simulation tool | As part of the project, a compendium of knowledge on the flexibility services and a case study in a selected pilot area will be developed, including an assessment of the effectiveness of a potential purchase of the flexibility services in relation to the planned expenditures on the grid modernization and the possible time frame of such modernization. There will also be an audit of the IT systems’ data availability and its usefulness for identifying the needs in terms of acquiring flexibility services and assessing the economic effectiveness of this process. The final product (outcome) of the project will be a prototype of a tool supporting the decision-making process regarding the purchase of the flexibility services, based on the analytical and forecasting methods developed as part of the project. | 419 900 | |
| TOTAL COSTS IN THE CATEGORY | 3 571 905 | ||
| Transmission and distribution technologies | Integrated cable grid diagnostics system | As part of the project a prototype of an IT tool to support the management of the MV cable lines is being developed, based on the technical and statistical data, as well as the results of the measurements and diagnostic tests carried out at the Tauron Dystrybucja subsidiary. The developed algorithms should determine the degree of risk and probability of a failure, as well as enable other analyses to facilitate the pre-emptive actions while maintaining an optimal technical and economic balance.
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216 312 |
| TOTAL COSTS IN THE CATEGORY | 216 312 | ||
| Advanced technologies (storage, recovery, etc.) | Flexibility of the existing power generating units with limited capital expenditures | The project focuses on developing an improved flexibility control and monitoring system that impacts the flexible use of the coal fired generating units. The technology developed will allow the power plants to be operated efficiently, taking into account the new requirements for the power ramp up/ramp down. The use of the system will shorten the power ramp up/ramp down time and will reduce the operating costs related to the numerous unit failures (thanks to the reduction of the current technical minimum). | 7 542 |
| Development of the industrial design of the carbonate fuel cells and ceramic electrolyzers enabling the integration with the power-to-gas installations | The goal of the project is to improve the chemical energy storage process (a substitute for natural gas – SNG), mainly based on the higher efficiency of the high temperature electrolysis and the use of the carbonate fuel cells for the CO2 capture from the flue gases, which does not require the supply of the electricity from the power plant to the capture system. In addition, both of the innovations introduced enable their integration on the heat and electricity generation side. | 1 328 830 | |
| Energy storage systems for the DSO needs | The goal of the project is to build a stationary energy storage system based on the electrochemical cells. The installation of the energy storage facility takes place at the point of connection to the distribution grid of the renewable energy sources, which will enable the use of this unit to increase the possibility of connecting such sources to the grid and mitigate the impact of the rapid changes in the generated power on the power quality parameters. | 2 039 797 | |
| Developing and testing an adaptive energy storage system based on the second life of the batteries coming from the electric vehicles (Second Life ESS) | The goal of the project is to reuse the lithium-ion batteries used by the electric vehicles before. As part of the project, the laboratory tests of the battery packs were carried out in 2022 to assess their condition and suitability for the stationary energy storage facility. In view of the satisfactory results of the tests, the construction of a prototype energy storage facility was commenced. It is expected that in 2023 the prototype storage facility will be tested under real-life conditions. |
629 822 |
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| Development of a decision making support tool for the selection of the electric bus charging technology and the location of the charging infrastructure | The project includes the development of a methodology for the selection of the electric bus charging technology to meet the needs of the bus fleet operators and the construction of a prototype IT tool to assist the DSOs and the bus fleet operators in the optimal planning of the fleet and charging infrastructure | 105 689 | |
| TOTAL COSTS IN THE CATEGORY | 4 111 680 | ||
| Innovative related services (e.g. remote meters) | Development of the advanced technology for the monitoring and predictive analysis of the technical condition of the boiler in order to increase the reliability of the boiler unit | The origin of the project is associated with the need to improve the availability (dispatchability) of the 460MWe unit. The technologies being developed should definitely increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of the diagnostics of the heat exchange surface inside the boiler, improving its availability and increasing the economic efficiency of its operation. The goal of the project is to develop two complementary technologies/tools for the advanced diagnostics of the wear of the heat exchange components inside the boiler. The first solution would be used for the precise (detailed) monitoring of the technical condition of the heat exchange components inside the boiler, which could operate at high temperatures, while the second solution would be used for the analysis and interpretation of the results obtained in the context of the prediction of the erosive wear of the heating surfaces of the boiler’s furnace chamber and the required repairs (overhauls). | 254 158
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| Development and demonstration of a computer system for operation control and management of the availability (dispatchability) and reliability of the industrial infrastructure based on the artificial intelligence algorithms | The goal of the project is to develop a prototype modular computer system based on the artificial intelligence algorithms in order to increase the reliability of Tauron Group’s generation infrastructure. The goal will be achieved through the creation of a hybrid IT infrastructure, which will include adaptive predictive/prescription models interoperating with the control systems, optimization algorithms, numerical models, databases and the algorithms controlling the health of the energy devices. | 3 953 830
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| Internet of Things (IOT) | The goal of the project is to develop and implement an IT architecture for collecting and managing data from the selected areas of a smart city, the implemented solution assumes scaling in terms of the number of the sensor devices and functional areas served. The project focuses on air quality monitoring, waste management, smart street lighting and parking management and traffic monitoring in the city, among others. The developed IT environment, along with the recommendations, will be the basis for developing and offering the ultimate (target) product to the cities and municipalities. | 93 890
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| Developing a tool to support the cooperation with the energy clusters with respect to the sharing and processing of the metering data | The goal of the project is to design, test and implement an ecosystem of the eMeter functionality to meet the needs of a new segment of customers – energy clusters and energy communities. | 24 623
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| Utilization of the next generation hydrogen technologies for the stationary energy and transportation applications, based on a circular economy (HYDROGEN POLAND) | The goal of the project is the industrial scale demonstration of a hydrogen based economy, which will include a full value chain. The project includes the production of the green hydrogen using the renewable energy and its further conversion, distribution and use. In parallel, it also assumes the use of the non-recyclable waste and its conversion into an alternative fuel – decarbonized synthetic natural gas. | 506 000
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| HEMS (Home Energy Management System) Program | The main goal of the Program is to develop specialized solutions in the field of building energy systems, in order to increase the revenue stream from the sales of the technologically advanced products and services. The Program also aims to tailor the sales and customer service tools and channels by developing the digital consulting and communication tools to support the customers in the process of planning and implementing the thermal insulation and energy saving projects. As part of the Program, works were carried out on the following projects in 2022:
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56 400
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| TOTAL COSTS IN THE CATEGORY | 4 888 901 | ||
| TOTAL AGGREGATE COSTS | 13 084 662 | ||