Do we need a European DARPA to cope with technological challenges in Europe?

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is often held as a model for driving technology advances. For decades, it has contributed to military and economic dominance by bridging the gap between military and civilian applications. European policymakers frequently reference DARPA in discussions, as outlined in the 2024 Draghi Report, but an EU equivalent has yet to materialise. To create such an agency, the governance and management of European innovation programmes would need drastic changes.

DARPA supports disruptive innovation

Founded in 1958, DARPA operates under the US Department of Defense (DoD) with a straightforward mission: to fund high-risk technological programmes that could lead to radical innovation. DARPA provides support throughout the innovation process, focusing on environments where new uses for technology must be invented or adapted. Although part of the DoD, DARPA funds projects that promise technological and economic superiority whether they align with current military priorities or not. DARPA has backed projects like ARPANET, the precursor to the internet, and the GPS. Today, DARPA shows interest in autonomous vehicles for urban areas and new missile technologies.

As part of its core mission, DARPA accepts high financial risks on exploration projects and makes long-term commitments to these projects. Many emblematic successes explain why DARPA is a reference agency. However, the list of failed projects is even longer. Both failures and successes feed the exploration process in emerging industrial sectors. They represent opportunities to learn together and build collective strategies in innovation ecosystems.

Five key principles of DARPA

DARPA’s success stems not just from its stability but from adhering to five organisational principles that allow it to explore deep tech in an open innovation context:

• Independence: DARPA operates independently from other military services, research & development centres and federal agencies, allowing it to explore options outside dominant research paradigms. While cooperation is possible, its decisions and directions are not influenced by other parts of the federal administration.

• Agility: The agency’s flat organisational structure minimises bureaucracy. Its independent decision-making processes and streamlined contracting allow it to pivot quickly, test new concepts and collaborate with academic or private sector partners. Agility also enables DARPA to test new exploration or experimentation methods that are often based on user-centric approaches. Potential military or civilian end-users are involved very early in innovation projects to discuss potential uses and applications. This approach has recently led DARPA to absorb the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), where officers from the different military services (Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines) and all military ranks test new technological solutions (from different maturity levels), fostering co-creation processes with military innovators and expanding the agency’s impact.

• Sponsorship: High-ranking executives within the DoD and other federal administrations (NASA, Department of Energy) endorse, but do not commission, DARPA’s projects. This sponsorship model increases a project’s potential impact and allows for swift adaptation if a project fails.

• Community building: DARPA creates innovation communities with a mix of diverse expertise. By bringing different perspectives together, it fosters collective strategies essential for disruptive innovation.

• Diverse leadership: Project managers come from a range of backgrounds, including civilian experts, military officers and private-sector professionals. All have demonstrated scientific and technological expertise and a solid capability to bridge dreams and foresight with reality. All have a perfect command of risk and complexity management. Managers serve three- to four-year terms focused on driving technological disruption and building new innovation ecosystems. Their diverse expertise sets DARPA apart from other federal agencies.

The challenge of a European DARPA

The Draghi Report on European competitiveness suggests that a European DARPA could help bridge technological gaps, reduce dependencies and accelerate the green transition. However, implementing this model would require a seismic shift in how European agencies operate. Creating a new agency would be ineffective without ensuring that all principles underlying the success of DARPA are implemented in Europe.

Even if Europe actively promotes deep tech and devotes significant budgets to it, European public policies and ways of working prevailing in national and European agencies are hardly consistent with the DARPA model. European agencies do not have much autonomy in their decisions about the exploration of new ventures or human resource management. They clearly demonstrate an outcome-focused orientation inconsistent with DARPA’s approach to risk.

Two main challenges

European agencies often lack the stable missions, scope and ambition seen at DARPA. The European Space Agency (ESA), the European Defence Agency (EDA) and Eurocontrol highlight the difficulties in developing cohesive, cross-border innovation ecosystems. A European DARPA would require a unified ambition among EU member states, a challenging feat given the institutional and geopolitical divides within Europe. The debates around the European Defence Fund illustrate how complex it is to reach consensus on shared objectives and funding.

Adopting DARPA’s five organisational principles would represent a cultural revolution for European agencies in relation to EU bureaucratic norms and the budgetary controls of individual member states. Implementing these changes would also disrupt the existing power balance between countries. The DARPA model is inconsistent with the European “fair returns” model that refers to proportionality rules between funding, research operations and then industrial repartition during the production phase between member states in each project. The DARPA model would only focus on existing competencies, excellence, risk-taking approaches and entrepreneurial mindsets.

Establishing a European DARPA would require a fundamental rethinking of public policy management in Europe. Its success would depend on whether European stakeholders are willing to adopt DARPA’s core principles, including its independence, agility and willingness to accept failure. Creating an agency is one thing; ensuring it adheres to the structures that make DARPA effective is another. The question remains: Is Europe ready for this transformation?

The European Academy of Management (EURAM) is a learned society founded in 2001. With over 2,000 members from 60 countries in Europe and beyond, EURAM aims at advancing the academic discipline of management in Europe.

David W. Versailles has received funding from the French Ministry of Defence to develop this research.

Valérie Mérindol has received funding from the French Ministry of the Armed Forces to develop this research.

Do we need a European DARPA to cope with technological challenges in Europe?

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is often held as a model for driving technology advances. For decades, it has contributed to military and economic dominance by bridging the gap between military and civilian applications. European policymakers frequently reference DARPA in discussions, as outlined in the 2024 Draghi Report, but an EU equivalent has yet to materialise. To create such an agency, the governance and management of European innovation programmes would need drastic changes.

DARPA supports disruptive innovation

Founded in 1958, DARPA operates under the US Department of Defense (DoD) with a straightforward mission: to fund high-risk technological programmes that could lead to radical innovation. DARPA provides support throughout the innovation process, focusing on environments where new uses for technology must be invented or adapted. Although part of the DoD, DARPA funds projects that promise technological and economic superiority whether they align with current military priorities or not. DARPA has backed projects like ARPANET, the precursor to the internet, and the GPS. Today, DARPA shows interest in autonomous vehicles for urban areas and new missile technologies.

As part of its core mission, DARPA accepts high financial risks on exploration projects and makes long-term commitments to these projects. Many emblematic successes explain why DARPA is a reference agency. However, the list of failed projects is even longer. Both failures and successes feed the exploration process in emerging industrial sectors. They represent opportunities to learn together and build collective strategies in innovation ecosystems.

Five key principles of DARPA

DARPA’s success stems not just from its stability but from adhering to five organisational principles that allow it to explore deep tech in an open innovation context:

• Independence: DARPA operates independently from other military services, research & development centres and federal agencies, allowing it to explore options outside dominant research paradigms. While cooperation is possible, its decisions and directions are not influenced by other parts of the federal administration.

• Agility: The agency’s flat organisational structure minimises bureaucracy. Its independent decision-making processes and streamlined contracting allow it to pivot quickly, test new concepts and collaborate with academic or private sector partners. Agility also enables DARPA to test new exploration or experimentation methods that are often based on user-centric approaches. Potential military or civilian end-users are involved very early in innovation projects to discuss potential uses and applications. This approach has recently led DARPA to absorb the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), where officers from the different military services (Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines) and all military ranks test new technological solutions (from different maturity levels), fostering co-creation processes with military innovators and expanding the agency’s impact.

• Sponsorship: High-ranking executives within the DoD and other federal administrations (NASA, Department of Energy) endorse, but do not commission, DARPA’s projects. This sponsorship model increases a project’s potential impact and allows for swift adaptation if a project fails.

• Community building: DARPA creates innovation communities with a mix of diverse expertise. By bringing different perspectives together, it fosters collective strategies essential for disruptive innovation.

• Diverse leadership: Project managers come from a range of backgrounds, including civilian experts, military officers and private-sector professionals. All have demonstrated scientific and technological expertise and a solid capability to bridge dreams and foresight with reality. All have a perfect command of risk and complexity management. Managers serve three- to four-year terms focused on driving technological disruption and building new innovation ecosystems. Their diverse expertise sets DARPA apart from other federal agencies.

The challenge of a European DARPA

The Draghi Report on European competitiveness suggests that a European DARPA could help bridge technological gaps, reduce dependencies and accelerate the green transition. However, implementing this model would require a seismic shift in how European agencies operate. Creating a new agency would be ineffective without ensuring that all principles underlying the success of DARPA are implemented in Europe.

Even if Europe actively promotes deep tech and devotes significant budgets to it, European public policies and ways of working prevailing in national and European agencies are hardly consistent with the DARPA model. European agencies do not have much autonomy in their decisions about the exploration of new ventures or human resource management. They clearly demonstrate an outcome-focused orientation inconsistent with DARPA’s approach to risk.

Two main challenges

European agencies often lack the stable missions, scope and ambition seen at DARPA. The European Space Agency (ESA), the European Defence Agency (EDA) and Eurocontrol highlight the difficulties in developing cohesive, cross-border innovation ecosystems. A European DARPA would require a unified ambition among EU member states, a challenging feat given the institutional and geopolitical divides within Europe. The debates around the European Defence Fund illustrate how complex it is to reach consensus on shared objectives and funding.

Adopting DARPA’s five organisational principles would represent a cultural revolution for European agencies in relation to EU bureaucratic norms and the budgetary controls of individual member states. Implementing these changes would also disrupt the existing power balance between countries. The DARPA model is inconsistent with the European “fair returns” model that refers to proportionality rules between funding, research operations and then industrial repartition during the production phase between member states in each project. The DARPA model would only focus on existing competencies, excellence, risk-taking approaches and entrepreneurial mindsets.

Establishing a European DARPA would require a fundamental rethinking of public policy management in Europe. Its success would depend on whether European stakeholders are willing to adopt DARPA’s core principles, including its independence, agility and willingness to accept failure. Creating an agency is one thing; ensuring it adheres to the structures that make DARPA effective is another. The question remains: Is Europe ready for this transformation?

The European Academy of Management (EURAM) is a learned society founded in 2001. With over 2,000 members from 60 countries in Europe and beyond, EURAM aims at advancing the academic discipline of management in Europe.

David W. Versailles has received funding from the French Ministry of Defence to develop this research.

Valérie Mérindol has received funding from the French Ministry of the Armed Forces to develop this research.

Generative AI can boost innovation – but only when humans are in control

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT or Dall-E are changing how creative work is done, particularly in industries that rely on innovation.

However, AI use in the innovation process requires careful considerations. Our research shows that the key to success is understanding and leveraging the distinct but complementary roles that both humans and AI play.

Innovation is vital for any business that wants to succeed today. In fact, 83 per cent of companies see innovation as a top priority, yet only three per cent are ready to turn this priority into action. This shows how much companies need to improve their approach to innovation.

Innovation is about solving complex problems that result in real improvement. It’s not just about coming up with good ideas — it also involves knowledge work, which is the process of using information to create something valuable.

Generative AI can help businesses get ready to innovate by making knowledge work easier, but its full potential in this area is still not fully understood.

Design sprints

Our team, which includes academic researchers with expertise in emerging digital technologies and a practitioner experienced in leading human-centred innovation projects, conducted a detailed study of how generative AI was used in design sprints at three organizations. (The study is available as a pre-print and has been submitted to a journal for peer review).

A design sprint is a fast, structured process for solving important problems that helps teams test if a product, service or strategy will work. Sprints are useful because they reduce the risks and costs of traditional product development

During a design sprint, a small team of five to seven employees from different areas works together intensely for a few days to solve a problem. Their work is co-ordinated by a facilitator, who organizes activities, guides the team, keeps track of progress, makes sure the goals are clear and that time is used efficiently.

The first stage of a design sprint focuses on understanding and defining the problem, while the second stage is about creating and testing a solution. Both stages require teams to use two key types of thinking:

1. Divergent thinking, which means coming up with many different ideas and possibilities.

2. Convergent thinking, which means narrowing those ideas down to identify priorities or solutions.

Our study examined how the facilitator used generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E 3 or Uizard to help the team engage effectively in both divergence and convergence.

AI and humans working together

In divergent thinking activities, we found two main benefits of using generative AI. First, it encouraged teams to explore more possibilities by providing baseline ideas as a starting point. Second, it helped to rephrase and synthesize unclear ideas from team members, ultimately leading to better communication within the teams.

One participant told us:

“Sometimes we had a lot of ideas, and the AI summarized them into a concise text. This allowed us to wrap our head around it. It gave us a base, there were many fragmented ideas that everyone had contributed, and now we had a text we all agreed on. This way, we started from the same base which served as a springboard to move forward.”

The real value of generative AI was thus not in contributing brilliant new ideas itself, but in the valuable synergies that emerged from the process. Team members used their contextual knowledge and stayed in charge of the process while the AI helped to better convey their ideas, expand exploration and address possible blind spots.

Making better informed decisions

We noticed different dynamics in convergence activities where teams had to make decisions after demanding sessions of idea generation. By that point, team members were usually mentally exhausted. Generative AI was especially helpful for doing the heavy lifting during this part.

The AI helped manage the information-intensive tasks necessary for team alignment like reformulating, summarizing, organizing, comparing and ranking options. This reduced the mental strain on team members, allowing them to focus on important tasks like evaluating ideas. In this process, the team was responsible for:

1. Checking AI’s outputs to make sure the content was accurate and useful. For example, ChatGPT and Uizard helped create draft scenarios and prototype drafts to validate their concept, but the team still had to refine them to meet project goals.
2. Adding their own insights and contextual nuances to guide final decisions, considering factors like feasibility, ethics and long-term strategic impact.

One participant said:

“Sometimes, the AI would focus onto details that were insignificant to us…Sometimes we needed less general synthesis and more personalized input.”

Overall, this form of human-AI collaboration in convergent activities helped the team make better informed and more confident decisions about which problem to focus on and which solution to pursue. This made them feel in control of the sprint’s final outcomes.

One participant said:

“For pivotal phases like making decisions or voting on something important like a success factor, if we relied solely on AI to determine what is important, there would be rejection. We are better positioned to know. We are the employees who will execute the final solution.”

Challenges and opportunities

Consistent with research on cognitive automation and intelligent automation, we found that generative AI was of great help in handling cognitively demanding tasks like reformulating poorly articulated ideas, summarizing information and recognizing patterns in team members’ contributions.

A key challenge with using Generative AI in innovation is ensuring it complements, rather than replaces, human involvement. While AI can act as a useful companion, there’s a risk it could reduce team engagement or ownership of the project if overused.

The design sprint facilitator told us:

“Feasibility needs to be balanced with desirability. You could technically automate most of the process but that would kill the need for pleasure, interaction, and humans’ doubts won’t be addressed; plus humans need to own the problem — all these are essential elements in a human-centred innovation process.”

Consequently, regularly assessing AI’s impact within this process is crucial in order to maintain a healthy balance. Automation should enhance creativity and decision-making without undermining the human insights that are central to innovation.

As AI continues to develop, its role in innovation will grow. Companies that integrate AI into their workflows will be better equipped to handle the fast-paced demands of modern innovation. But it’s important to understand both the strengths and limits of AI and humans to ensure this collaboration is effective.

This article was co-authored by Cédric Martineau, CEO and innovation management consultant at Carverinno Consulting.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Generative AI can boost innovation – but only when humans are in control

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT or Dall-E are changing how creative work is done, particularly in industries that rely on innovation.

However, AI use in the innovation process requires careful considerations. Our research shows that the key to success is understanding and leveraging the distinct but complementary roles that both humans and AI play.

Innovation is vital for any business that wants to succeed today. In fact, 83 per cent of companies see innovation as a top priority, yet only three per cent are ready to turn this priority into action. This shows how much companies need to improve their approach to innovation.

Innovation is about solving complex problems that result in real improvement. It’s not just about coming up with good ideas — it also involves knowledge work, which is the process of using information to create something valuable.

Generative AI can help businesses get ready to innovate by making knowledge work easier, but its full potential in this area is still not fully understood.

Design sprints

Our team, which includes academic researchers with expertise in emerging digital technologies and a practitioner experienced in leading human-centred innovation projects, conducted a detailed study of how generative AI was used in design sprints at three organizations. (The study is available as a pre-print and has been submitted to a journal for peer review).

A design sprint is a fast, structured process for solving important problems that helps teams test if a product, service or strategy will work. Sprints are useful because they reduce the risks and costs of traditional product development

During a design sprint, a small team of five to seven employees from different areas works together intensely for a few days to solve a problem. Their work is co-ordinated by a facilitator, who organizes activities, guides the team, keeps track of progress, makes sure the goals are clear and that time is used efficiently.

The first stage of a design sprint focuses on understanding and defining the problem, while the second stage is about creating and testing a solution. Both stages require teams to use two key types of thinking:

1. Divergent thinking, which means coming up with many different ideas and possibilities.

2. Convergent thinking, which means narrowing those ideas down to identify priorities or solutions.

Our study examined how the facilitator used generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E 3 or Uizard to help the team engage effectively in both divergence and convergence.

AI and humans working together

In divergent thinking activities, we found two main benefits of using generative AI. First, it encouraged teams to explore more possibilities by providing baseline ideas as a starting point. Second, it helped to rephrase and synthesize unclear ideas from team members, ultimately leading to better communication within the teams.

One participant told us:

“Sometimes we had a lot of ideas, and the AI summarized them into a concise text. This allowed us to wrap our head around it. It gave us a base, there were many fragmented ideas that everyone had contributed, and now we had a text we all agreed on. This way, we started from the same base which served as a springboard to move forward.”

The real value of generative AI was thus not in contributing brilliant new ideas itself, but in the valuable synergies that emerged from the process. Team members used their contextual knowledge and stayed in charge of the process while the AI helped to better convey their ideas, expand exploration and address possible blind spots.

Making better informed decisions

We noticed different dynamics in convergence activities where teams had to make decisions after demanding sessions of idea generation. By that point, team members were usually mentally exhausted. Generative AI was especially helpful for doing the heavy lifting during this part.

The AI helped manage the information-intensive tasks necessary for team alignment like reformulating, summarizing, organizing, comparing and ranking options. This reduced the mental strain on team members, allowing them to focus on important tasks like evaluating ideas. In this process, the team was responsible for:

1. Checking AI’s outputs to make sure the content was accurate and useful. For example, ChatGPT and Uizard helped create draft scenarios and prototype drafts to validate their concept, but the team still had to refine them to meet project goals.
2. Adding their own insights and contextual nuances to guide final decisions, considering factors like feasibility, ethics and long-term strategic impact.

One participant said:

“Sometimes, the AI would focus onto details that were insignificant to us…Sometimes we needed less general synthesis and more personalized input.”

Overall, this form of human-AI collaboration in convergent activities helped the team make better informed and more confident decisions about which problem to focus on and which solution to pursue. This made them feel in control of the sprint’s final outcomes.

One participant said:

“For pivotal phases like making decisions or voting on something important like a success factor, if we relied solely on AI to determine what is important, there would be rejection. We are better positioned to know. We are the employees who will execute the final solution.”

Challenges and opportunities

Consistent with research on cognitive automation and intelligent automation, we found that generative AI was of great help in handling cognitively demanding tasks like reformulating poorly articulated ideas, summarizing information and recognizing patterns in team members’ contributions.

A key challenge with using Generative AI in innovation is ensuring it complements, rather than replaces, human involvement. While AI can act as a useful companion, there’s a risk it could reduce team engagement or ownership of the project if overused.

The design sprint facilitator told us:

“Feasibility needs to be balanced with desirability. You could technically automate most of the process but that would kill the need for pleasure, interaction, and humans’ doubts won’t be addressed; plus humans need to own the problem — all these are essential elements in a human-centred innovation process.”

Consequently, regularly assessing AI’s impact within this process is crucial in order to maintain a healthy balance. Automation should enhance creativity and decision-making without undermining the human insights that are central to innovation.

As AI continues to develop, its role in innovation will grow. Companies that integrate AI into their workflows will be better equipped to handle the fast-paced demands of modern innovation. But it’s important to understand both the strengths and limits of AI and humans to ensure this collaboration is effective.

This article was co-authored by Cédric Martineau, CEO and innovation management consultant at Carverinno Consulting.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

From waste to power: how floating solar panels on wastewater ponds could help solve NZ’s electricity security crisis

Wastewater ponds may seem an unlikely place to look for solutions to New Zealand’s electricity security crisis. But their underutilised surfaces could help tackle two problems at once – high power prices and algal growth.

Floating solar panels on wastewater ponds offer a multifaceted answer. They generate renewable energy, improve water quality in the treatment ponds and reduce costs.

Leading this approach is the 2020 installation of New Zealand’s first floating solar array at the Rosedale wastewater treatment plant in Auckland. This project demonstrates how New Zealand could double the country’s power supply without requiring additional land. It serves as a test for future deployments on other reservoirs and dams.

The project comprises 2,700 solar panels and 4,000 floating pontoons. It covers one hectare of the treatment pond, making excellent use of a marginal land asset in a dense urban environment.

The floating solar array generates 1,040 kilowatts of electricity and reduces 145 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. It also saves NZ$4.5 million in electricity costs per year. The electricity it generates, alongside biogas co-generation, meets 25% of the plant’s energy needs.

The project represents the first use of floating solar and the first megawatt-sized solar project in the country. As energy prices soar and environmental pressures mount, it is time to start exploring innovative solutions with the resources we already have.

Wastewater ponds provide underused surface

New Zealand is currently grappling with an electricity crisis, marked by increasing demand, aging infrastructure and a challenging transition to renewable energy sources.

The country relies heavily on hydroelectric power. This makes it particularly vulnerable during periods of low water levels in hydro lakes, especially in winter. This in turn leads to frequent supply shortfalls and, combined with diminishing gas supplies, to rising electricity prices.

As New Zealand intensifies its efforts to integrate more renewable energy, we need innovative solutions to stabilise the grid and meet growing energy demands.

One underutilised resource lies in wastewater treatment ponds. New Zealand has more than 200 wastewater ponds, chosen for their simplicity and low operational costs. They remain the most common form of wastewater treatment because they are robust, require low energy, cope with high water and waste loads and provide buffer storage to avoid applying agricultural effluent to wet soils.

However, because of the high surface area and nutrient-rich environment, algal growth is one of the biggest issues with waste stabilisation ponds. This is exacerbated on days with high sunshine levels and warmer water temperatures. It complicates the treatment process and necessitates costly chemical interventions.

An opportunity for New Zealand

My background is in entrepreneurship and innovation and the idea of floating solar panels on New Zealand’s expansive wastewater ponds represents an untapped opportunity.

Apart from generating power and preventing algal growth, the solar panels provide shade that keeps the water cooler and reduces evaporation. This is critical for maintaining effective wastewater treatment.

Utility-scale solar panels are now recognised as the cheapest form of energy, with rapidly declining costs over the past five years.

While relatively new to New Zealand, floating solar panels have shown significant advantages in other parts of the world. New Zealand may be held back by a misconception that solar panels work best in hot and sunny climates. In fact, solar panels harness the sun’s energy – not its temperature – making New Zealand’s cooler climate an ideal environment for efficient solar energy generation.

Given New Zealand uses more energy per capita than 17 of our 30 OECD peers, floating solar panels on wastewater ponds could set an example for how we tackle energy and environmental challenges.

By turning underutilised spaces into power-generating assets, we not only address immediate needs but also pave the way for a more sustainable, resilient future.

Faith Jeremiah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

From waste to power: how floating solar panels on wastewater ponds could help solve NZ’s electricity security crisis

Wastewater ponds may seem an unlikely place to look for solutions to New Zealand’s electricity security crisis. But their underutilised surfaces could help tackle two problems at once – high power prices and algal growth.

Floating solar panels on wastewater ponds offer a multifaceted answer. They generate renewable energy, improve water quality in the treatment ponds and reduce costs.

Leading this approach is the 2020 installation of New Zealand’s first floating solar array at the Rosedale wastewater treatment plant in Auckland. This project demonstrates how New Zealand could double the country’s power supply without requiring additional land. It serves as a test for future deployments on other reservoirs and dams.

The project comprises 2,700 solar panels and 4,000 floating pontoons. It covers one hectare of the treatment pond, making excellent use of a marginal land asset in a dense urban environment.

The floating solar array generates 1,040 kilowatts of electricity and reduces 145 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. It also saves NZ$4.5 million in electricity costs per year. The electricity it generates, alongside biogas co-generation, meets 25% of the plant’s energy needs.

The project represents the first use of floating solar and the first megawatt-sized solar project in the country. As energy prices soar and environmental pressures mount, it is time to start exploring innovative solutions with the resources we already have.

Wastewater ponds provide underused surface

New Zealand is currently grappling with an electricity crisis, marked by increasing demand, aging infrastructure and a challenging transition to renewable energy sources.

The country relies heavily on hydroelectric power. This makes it particularly vulnerable during periods of low water levels in hydro lakes, especially in winter. This in turn leads to frequent supply shortfalls and, combined with diminishing gas supplies, to rising electricity prices.

As New Zealand intensifies its efforts to integrate more renewable energy, we need innovative solutions to stabilise the grid and meet growing energy demands.

One underutilised resource lies in wastewater treatment ponds. New Zealand has more than 200 wastewater ponds, chosen for their simplicity and low operational costs. They remain the most common form of wastewater treatment because they are robust, require low energy, cope with high water and waste loads and provide buffer storage to avoid applying agricultural effluent to wet soils.

However, because of the high surface area and nutrient-rich environment, algal growth is one of the biggest issues with waste stabilisation ponds. This is exacerbated on days with high sunshine levels and warmer water temperatures. It complicates the treatment process and necessitates costly chemical interventions.

An opportunity for New Zealand

My background is in entrepreneurship and innovation and the idea of floating solar panels on New Zealand’s expansive wastewater ponds represents an untapped opportunity.

Apart from generating power and preventing algal growth, the solar panels provide shade that keeps the water cooler and reduces evaporation. This is critical for maintaining effective wastewater treatment.

Utility-scale solar panels are now recognised as the cheapest form of energy, with rapidly declining costs over the past five years.

While relatively new to New Zealand, floating solar panels have shown significant advantages in other parts of the world. New Zealand may be held back by a misconception that solar panels work best in hot and sunny climates. In fact, solar panels harness the sun’s energy – not its temperature – making New Zealand’s cooler climate an ideal environment for efficient solar energy generation.

Given New Zealand uses more energy per capita than 17 of our 30 OECD peers, floating solar panels on wastewater ponds could set an example for how we tackle energy and environmental challenges.

By turning underutilised spaces into power-generating assets, we not only address immediate needs but also pave the way for a more sustainable, resilient future.

Faith Jeremiah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Climate change is a pollution problem, and countries know how to deal with pollution threats – think DDT and acid rain

Climate change can seem like an insurmountable challenge. However, if you look closely at its causes, you’ll realize that history is filled with similar health and environmental threats that humanity has overcome.

The main cause of climate change – carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels – is really just another pollutant. And countries know how to reduce harmful pollutants. They did it with the pesticide DDT, lead paint and the power plant emissions that were causing acid rain, among many others.

In each of those cases, growing public outcry eventually led to policy changes, despite pushback from industry. Once pressured by laws and regulations, industries ramped up production of safer solutions.

I am an earth and environmental scientist, and my latest book, “Reclaiming Our Planet,” explores history’s lessons in overcoming seemingly insurmountable hazards. Here are a few examples:

Banning DDT despite industry pushback

DDT was the first truly effective pesticide and considered to be miraculous. By killing mosquitoes and lice, it wiped out malaria and other diseases in many countries, and in agriculture, it saved tons of crops.

After World War II, DDT was applied to farms, buildings and gardens throughout the United States. However, it also had drawbacks. It accumulated in mother’s milk to levels where it could deliver a toxic dose to infants. Women were advised against nursing their babies in the 1960s because of the danger.

In addition, DDT bioaccumulated up the food chain to toxic levels in apex species like raptors. It weakened the eggshells to the point where brooding mothers crushed their eggs. Bald eagles were reduced to 417 breeding pairs across North America by 1967 and were placed on the endangered species list.

Biologist Rachel Carson documented DDT’s damage in her 1962 book “Silent Spring” and, in doing so, catalyzed a public environmental movement. Despite disinformation campaigns and attacks from the chemical industry, tremendous public pressure on politicians led to congressional hearings, state and federal restrictions and eventually a U.S. ban on the general use of DDT in 1972.

Bald eagles recovered to 320,000 in the United States by 2017, about equal to populations from before European settlement. The chemical industry, facing a DDT ban, quickly developed much safer pesticides.

Building evidence of lead’s hazards

Lead use skyrocketed in the 20th century, particularly in paints, plumbing and gasoline. It was so widespread that just about everyone was exposed to a metal that research now shows can harm the kidneys, liver, cardiovascular system and children’s brain development.

Clair “Pat” Patterson, a geochemist at the California Institute of Technology, showed that Americans were continuously exposed to lead at near toxic levels. Human skeletons from the 1960s were found to have up to 1,200 times the lead of ancient skeletons. Today, health standards say there’s no safe level of lead in the blood.

Despite threats both personally and professionally and a disinformation campaign from industry, Patterson and his supporters compiled years of evidence to warn the public and eventually pressured politicians to ban lead from many uses, including in gasoline and residential paints.

Once regulations were in place, industry ramped up production of substitutes. As a result, lead levels in the blood of children decreased by 97% over the next several decades. While lead exposure is less common now, some people are still exposed to dangerous levels lingering in homes, pipes and soil, often in low-income neighborhoods.

Stopping acid rain: An international problem

Acid rain is primarily caused when sulfur dioxide, released into the air by the burning of coal, high-sulfur oil and smelting and refining of metals, interacts with rain or fog. The acidic rain that falls can destroy forests, kill lake ecosystems and dissolve statues and corrode infrastructure.

Acid rain damage across Europe and North America in the 20th century also showed the world how air pollution, which doesn’t stop at borders, can become an international crisis requiring international solutions.

The problem of acid rain began well over a century ago, but sulfur dioxide levels grew quickly after World War II. A thermal inversion in London in 1952 created such a concentration of sulfur dioxide and other air pollutants that it killed thousands of people. As damage to forests and lakes worsened across Europe, countries signed international agreements starting in the 1980s to cut their sulfur dioxide emissions.

In the U.S., emissions from Midwestern power plants killed fish and trees in the pristine Adirondacks. The damage, health concerns and multiple disasters outraged the public, and politicians responded.

Sulfur dioxide was named as one of the six criteria air pollutants in the groundbreaking 1970 U.S. Clean Air Act, which required the federal government to set limits on its release. Power plants installed scrubbers to capture the pollutant, and over the next 40 years, sulfur dioxide concentrations in the U.S. decreased by about 95%.

Parallels with climate change

There are many parallels between these examples and climate change today.

Mountains of scientific evidence show how carbon dixoide emissions from fossil fuel combustion in vehicles, factories and power plants are warming the planet. The fossil fuel industry began using its political power and misinformation campaigns decades ago to block regulations that were designed to slow climate change.

And people around the world, facing worsening heat and weather disasters fueled by global warming, have been calling for action to stop climate change and invest in cleaner energy.

The first Earth Day, in 1970, drew 20 million people. Rallies in recent years have shifted the focus to climate change and have drawn millions of people around the world.

The challenge has been getting politicians to act, but that is slowly changing in many countries.

The United States has started investing in scaling up several tools to rein in climate change, including electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels. Federal and state policies, such as requirements for renewable energy production and limits on greenhouse gas emissions, are also crucial for getting industries to switch to less harmful alternatives.

Climate change is a global problem that will require efforts worldwide. International agreements are also helping more countries take steps forward. One shift that has been discussed by countries for years could help boost those efforts: Ending the billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded fossil fuel subsidies and shifting that money to healthier solutions could help move the needle toward slowing climate change.

Alexander E. Gates is affiliated with The Newark Green Team.

Climate change is a pollution problem, and countries know how to deal with pollution threats – think DDT and acid rain

Climate change can seem like an insurmountable challenge. However, if you look closely at its causes, you’ll realize that history is filled with similar health and environmental threats that humanity has overcome.

The main cause of climate change – carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels – is really just another pollutant. And countries know how to reduce harmful pollutants. They did it with the pesticide DDT, lead paint and the power plant emissions that were causing acid rain, among many others.

In each of those cases, growing public outcry eventually led to policy changes, despite pushback from industry. Once pressured by laws and regulations, industries ramped up production of safer solutions.

I am an earth and environmental scientist, and my latest book, “Reclaiming Our Planet,” explores history’s lessons in overcoming seemingly insurmountable hazards. Here are a few examples:

Banning DDT despite industry pushback

DDT was the first truly effective pesticide and considered to be miraculous. By killing mosquitoes and lice, it wiped out malaria and other diseases in many countries, and in agriculture, it saved tons of crops.

After World War II, DDT was applied to farms, buildings and gardens throughout the United States. However, it also had drawbacks. It accumulated in mother’s milk to levels where it could deliver a toxic dose to infants. Women were advised against nursing their babies in the 1960s because of the danger.

In addition, DDT bioaccumulated up the food chain to toxic levels in apex species like raptors. It weakened the eggshells to the point where brooding mothers crushed their eggs. Bald eagles were reduced to 417 breeding pairs across North America by 1967 and were placed on the endangered species list.

Biologist Rachel Carson documented DDT’s damage in her 1962 book “Silent Spring” and, in doing so, catalyzed a public environmental movement. Despite disinformation campaigns and attacks from the chemical industry, tremendous public pressure on politicians led to congressional hearings, state and federal restrictions and eventually a U.S. ban on the general use of DDT in 1972.

Bald eagles recovered to 320,000 in the United States by 2017, about equal to populations from before European settlement. The chemical industry, facing a DDT ban, quickly developed much safer pesticides.

Building evidence of lead’s hazards

Lead use skyrocketed in the 20th century, particularly in paints, plumbing and gasoline. It was so widespread that just about everyone was exposed to a metal that research now shows can harm the kidneys, liver, cardiovascular system and children’s brain development.

Clair “Pat” Patterson, a geochemist at the California Institute of Technology, showed that Americans were continuously exposed to lead at near toxic levels. Human skeletons from the 1960s were found to have up to 1,200 times the lead of ancient skeletons. Today, health standards say there’s no safe level of lead in the blood.

Despite threats both personally and professionally and a disinformation campaign from industry, Patterson and his supporters compiled years of evidence to warn the public and eventually pressured politicians to ban lead from many uses, including in gasoline and residential paints.

Once regulations were in place, industry ramped up production of substitutes. As a result, lead levels in the blood of children decreased by 97% over the next several decades. While lead exposure is less common now, some people are still exposed to dangerous levels lingering in homes, pipes and soil, often in low-income neighborhoods.

Stopping acid rain: An international problem

Acid rain is primarily caused when sulfur dioxide, released into the air by the burning of coal, high-sulfur oil and smelting and refining of metals, interacts with rain or fog. The acidic rain that falls can destroy forests, kill lake ecosystems and dissolve statues and corrode infrastructure.

Acid rain damage across Europe and North America in the 20th century also showed the world how air pollution, which doesn’t stop at borders, can become an international crisis requiring international solutions.

The problem of acid rain began well over a century ago, but sulfur dioxide levels grew quickly after World War II. A thermal inversion in London in 1952 created such a concentration of sulfur dioxide and other air pollutants that it killed thousands of people. As damage to forests and lakes worsened across Europe, countries signed international agreements starting in the 1980s to cut their sulfur dioxide emissions.

In the U.S., emissions from Midwestern power plants killed fish and trees in the pristine Adirondacks. The damage, health concerns and multiple disasters outraged the public, and politicians responded.

Sulfur dioxide was named as one of the six criteria air pollutants in the groundbreaking 1970 U.S. Clean Air Act, which required the federal government to set limits on its release. Power plants installed scrubbers to capture the pollutant, and over the next 40 years, sulfur dioxide concentrations in the U.S. decreased by about 95%.

Parallels with climate change

There are many parallels between these examples and climate change today.

Mountains of scientific evidence show how carbon dixoide emissions from fossil fuel combustion in vehicles, factories and power plants are warming the planet. The fossil fuel industry began using its political power and misinformation campaigns decades ago to block regulations that were designed to slow climate change.

And people around the world, facing worsening heat and weather disasters fueled by global warming, have been calling for action to stop climate change and invest in cleaner energy.

The first Earth Day, in 1970, drew 20 million people. Rallies in recent years have shifted the focus to climate change and have drawn millions of people around the world.

The challenge has been getting politicians to act, but that is slowly changing in many countries.

The United States has started investing in scaling up several tools to rein in climate change, including electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels. Federal and state policies, such as requirements for renewable energy production and limits on greenhouse gas emissions, are also crucial for getting industries to switch to less harmful alternatives.

Climate change is a global problem that will require efforts worldwide. International agreements are also helping more countries take steps forward. One shift that has been discussed by countries for years could help boost those efforts: Ending the billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded fossil fuel subsidies and shifting that money to healthier solutions could help move the needle toward slowing climate change.

Alexander E. Gates is affiliated with The Newark Green Team.