Leveraging patent analysis to measure relatedness between technology domains: an application on offshore wind energy

Abstract

As the global energy sector transitions towards a cleaner and more sustainable future, observational evidence suggests that many new energy technologies share a close relationship with well-established technologies. Yet, the topic of how closely technologies are related has not been addressed rigorously, rather it has been the purview of practitioner know-how and informal expert opinion. In this study, we propose a quantitative method to supplement practitioners’ subjective understanding of the relatedness between technology domains. The method uses patents to represent the position of a technology in knowledge space and calculates the Hausdorff distance between patent domains to proxy the relatedness between technologies. We apply this method to investigate the relatedness of offshore wind energy technology to two more mature domains: onshore wind energy technology and offshore oil and gas technology. We examine the technological relatedness of individual offshore wind components to these two technologies, and represent the changes in relatedness through time. The results confirm that offshore wind components such as foundations, installation, and maintenance are more related to the offshore oil and gas industry; while other components, such as rotors and nacelles, are more related to onshore wind energy. The results also suggest that many offshore wind energy components are becoming less related through time to both of these domains, possibly indicating increasing innovation. This method can provide quantitative parameters to improve the modeling of technological change and guide practitioners in strategic decision-making regarding the positioning of industries and firms within those industries.