Japan

Highlights in 2020
Highlights in 2020

Update on clean energy innovation policies and strategies

“Environment Innovation Strategy,”[1] formulated in January 2020, targeted the global level reduction of GHG emissions toward carbon neutrality and further reduced atmospheric CO2 level “Beyond Zero”[2] by 2050. The “Innovation Action Plan” in the Strategy categorizes a total of 39 potential technologies for reducing GHG emissions. Japan’s government also established the “Green Innovation Strategy Meeting”[3] and its working group in July 2020 to implement the Innovation Action Plan’s PDCA cycle.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) formulated a “Green Growth Strategy Through Achieving Carbon Neutrality in 2050”[4] in collaboration with related ministries and agencies. This strategy is an industrial policy to lead the challenging goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, a vision that is upheld by the Suga administration and aims toward a positive cycle of economic growth and the environmental protection.

Major innovation initiatives and programmes in 2020/21

Tokyo “Beyond-Zero” Week[5] features six leading international conferences organized and hosted by Japan, held between October 7th and 14th 2020. Each conference offers a forum for high-level discussions about the key innovations required to build a global roadmap to carbon neutrality and find pathways to go “beyond zero”—namely reducing the levels of CO2 emissions already in the atmosphere.

Six international conferences:

  • ICEF2020
  • RD20
  • TCFD summit 2020
  • LNG Producer-Consumer Conference 2020
  • International Conference on Carbon Recycling 2020
  • Hydrogen Energy Ministerial Meeting 2020

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) established the Global Zero Emission Research Center (GZR)[6] on January 29, 2020, to conduct global joint research in the field of innovative environmental and energy technologies. The GZR hosted the second international conference of Research and Development 20 (RD20)[7] in October 2020, which creates the necessary environment for international joint research by strengthening collaboration among leading institutions of G20 countries.

Japan launched the “Moonshot Research and Development Program,”[8] aiming to solve various difficult issues in today’s society and to promote disruptive innovations by aggressively encouraging challenging R&D from domestic and foreign researchers and others. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) selected 13 R&D projects and the project managers for the program of Moonshot Goal #4, “Realization of sustainable resource circulation to recover the global environment by 2050.” Seven Moonshot Goals in total have been set since the program foundation and the Moonshot fund provides 100 billion JPY to support the selected projects for a five-year period.

Japan launched a global collaboration program, “Research and Development Program for Promoting Innovative Clean Energy Technologies Through International Collaboration” (FY2020–FY2024)[9], which is led by research institutes or universities between Japan and other countries mainly from G20 members in order to create new and innovative clean energy technologies that will have practical use after 2030. The total program budget is 900 million JPY per project/per year. 13 projects[10] were selected for FY2020.

Private sector engagement in 2020/21

On September 11, 2020, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) held the fifth meeting of the Study Group on Environmental Innovation Finance (chaired by Dr. Ito Kunio, Professor, Ph.D., Graduate School of Business Administration, Hitotsubashi University), and compiled the “Climate Innovation Finance Strategy 2020,” an interim report to convey Japan’s approaches to climate innovation finance to the rest of the world. Toward achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the goals set in the Paris Agreement, METI, through the strategy, will convey Japan’s message to the rest of the world, stating the importance of simultaneously advancing finance to each of three types of efforts for: [i] “transition” to steadily advance low carbonization and decarbonization, [ii] “green” to achieve decarbonization, e.g., renewable energy and [iii] “innovation”

Toward the 2050 carbon-neutral target, the Green Innovation Fund of 2 trillion yen was established in the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) under the FY2020 Tertiary Supplementary Budget.

Sharing ambitious and concrete goals, METI will continue to support private companies that tackle these goals as their management issue for the coming ten years, from research and development (R&D) to application of newly developed technologies into actual business.

Major activities in support of the Innovation Challenges in 2020/21

IC5: Converting Sunlight – Followed the workshop for developing the Converting Sunlight into Solar Fuels and Chemicals Roadmap 2020–2050 in Hiroshima in November 2019, Japan actively participated in the virtual US workshop and also contributed to support editing the roadmap.

IC8: Hydrogen – Japan participated in IC8 from its foundation in 2018. The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), the Hydrogen Valley Platform was launched in January 2021. The Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R)[11] [12] in Japan has selected. The FH2R has the world-largest electrolyser with 10 MW capacity, powered by solar PV with 20 MW capacity and the annual hydrogen production capacity amounts to about 200 tons per year.

Other Mission Innovation related activity in 2020/21

Japan participated in the second cohort of Champion Program. Yoshiki Takagiwa[13] – Principal Researcher at National Institute for Materials Science was selected as Japan Champion. Takagiwa developed an environmentally friendly Fe-Al-Si-based thermoelectric (FAST) materials, combined with experiments, theoretical calculation, and machine learning toward social implementation.

Public sector RD&D investment

The figures in the table below include overlapping areas therefore the sum is not equal to the total amount of public R&D investment.

New Collaborations

  • Collaborator: UK, France
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Collaborative R&D for Low-Cost and High-Durability Solar Cells
    • Brief Description
      • R&D of component cell technologies to realize high-efficiency (>30%), low-cost and high-durability perovskite/Si tandem solar cells.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: France
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint R&D for Multi-Junction Solar Cells Based on Novel Structures
    • Brief Description
      • R&D of core technologies to realize ultra-high efficiency solar cells with lightweight and flexible feature.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: Finland
    • Name of collaboration
      • Development of Microbial Production of Next-Generation Polylactate from Biomass-Derived Sugars
    • Brief Description
      • Process engineering for biopolymer production from cellulose-derived sugars.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: US
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research on Innovative Artificial Apomixis Induction Technology
    • Brief Description
      • Development of an artificial apomixes using a chimeric repressor gene silencing technology.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: Germany, UK, (Swiss)
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research on Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell
    • Brief Description
      • Development of intermediate temperature solid oxide electrolysis cells to effectively convert excess renewable power to hydrogen.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: US
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research on Solid Oxide Reversible Electrolyzer Cells
    • Brief Description
      • Development of solid oxide reversible cells (SORCs), which have a reversible 1000 cycle durability and 40,000 hours durability.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: France
    • Name of collaboration
      • Chemical Productions through Formate Intermediates by Solid Bis-metallic Catalysts
    • Brief Description
      • Development of a novel solid bimetallic catalyst to directly produce fine chemicals with amides from CO2 and H2.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: France, Germany, Korea
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research on Innovative Thermoelectric Devices and their Evaluation Technology
    • Brief Description
      • Development of high-efficiency and highly reliable thermoelectric power generation devices.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: US
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research and Development of Solar Concentrating Reactor for Carbon Dioxide Decomposition
    • Brief Description
      • R&D for CO2 decomposition system consists of efficient solar thermal receiver technology and a porous reactor system.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: France
    • Name of collaboration
      • Development of innovative solution-growth technology that improves productivity and quality of SiC crystals
    • Brief Description
      • Investigation on novel alloy solvents to strike a balance between high growth rate and growth stability of SiC crystals.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: Italy
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research for Metal-free Redox Flow Battery (RFB)
    • Brief Description
      • Development of innovative metal-free RFBs using new organic materials as redox centers and electrocatalysts for the cost reduction and avoiding resource constraints.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: Germany, US, (Swiss)
    • Name of collaboration
      • International Joint Research on High Voltage Devices and Power Electronics Element Technologies
    • Brief Description
      • R&D of process Technologies for cost reduction of ultra-high voltage SiC Power devices.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 

  • Collaborator: UK, US
    • Name of collaboration
      • Reliability Assessment Methodology for Advanced Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
    • Brief Description
      • Development of evaluation methods for CMC components using multiple inspection techniques, including international standardization of methodology and equipment.
    • Sectors
      • Public-public
    • Type of collaboration
      • Research and development
    • Duration
      • 2020 – 2023 (planned)
    • Funding amount
      • max JPY50M
    • Additional information

 


[1] https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/tougou-innovation/pdf/kankyousenryaku2020_english.pdf

[2] https://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/global_warming/roadmap/innovation/index.html

[3] https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2020/0707_003.html

[4] https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2020/1225_001.html

[5]https://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/global_warming/roadmap/tokyo_beyond-zero_week/index.html

[6] https://www.gzr.aist.go.jp/en/

[7] https://rd20.jp/

[8] https://www.nedo.go.jp/english/news/ZZCA_100007.html

[9] https://www.nedo.go.jp/content/100903472.pdf

[10] https://www.nedo.go.jp/activities/ZZJP_100173.html

[11] https://www.nedo.go.jp/english/news/AA5en_100422.html

[12] https://www.h2v.eu/hydrogen-valleys/fukushima-plan-new-energy-society

[13] https://samurai.nims.go.jp/profiles/takagiwa_yoshiki?locale=en