ETN Global publishes R&D Recommendation Report – 2026 Edition

On 24 March 2026 during Annual General Meeting, ETN Global presented the newly published report, titled R&D Recommendation Report – 2026 Edition. It highlights that turbomachinery’s role in a decarbonising system depends on flexibility, reliability, and future adaptability.

Although turbomachinery is currently experiencing a rise in demand, it is also met with certain market challenges, such as:

• Spare-parts shortages and long-lead times;
• Ageing fleets; and
• Regulatory uncertainty.

These barriers are treated as drivers for the R&D in the report, moving away the focus from maximum efficiency at full-load to prioritising operational resilience and flexibility, concentrating on:

• Product sustainability (e.g. digital tools, advanced repair methodologies…)
• Operational optimisation (e.g. Digital twins and artificial intelligence for predictive maintenance…)
• Integrated energy systems (e.g. WHR, cogeneration/trigeneration…)
• Energy efficiency (e.g. advanced cycles, such as supercritical CO_2​ systems…)
• Low carbon solutions (e.g. Nox emission control, CCS solutions…)

The purpose of the R&D recommendations outlined in the report is to initiate collaboration, demonstrations, feasibility studies, best-practice and standardisation work. It is meant to be a living document, which is updated every two years in order to keep R&D aligned with the policy goals and operational needs.

We would like to thank the members of the ETN Global’s Project Board, all of whom contributed to the various sections of the report and a special thank you to Haroon Shah, representative of Frazer-Nash Consultancy for the ETN Global Young Engineers Committee for the final review. This report was drafted with the assistance from the ETN Global Secretariat.

The report is available for download here.