Roadmapping an emerging technology in clean energy industry: A case study of dimethyl ether development in China

Technology roadmapping has been used to strategize the development of energy technologies. However, there is limited roadmapping application that analyzes the emergence of a new energy technology and elaborates how this new technology forms a new industry and disrupts the old ones. This paper, therefore, focuses on the development of a roadmapping framework for strategizing the emergence and growth of a clean energy technology towards an industry, and proposes a systematic approach to integrate the lifecycle analysis (LCA) tool that is specific for assessing energy technologies. The proposed framework has been tentatively applied in a national-level strategic research on clean coal development, conducted by Chinese Academy of Engineering. This proposed framework can also be generalized to other clean energy industries, and we anticipate our paper will bring inspirations on roadmapping and strategizing the “right” technologies for the growth of Chinese energy industries.