Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) is commissioning a review of renewable energy and storage technologies that have reached the research or demonstration stage but never scaled, to inform its future R&D support.

NEDO has opened a call for a contractor to carry out the study, with a budget ceiling of JPY 20 million ($126,430) including tax – JPY 7 million in fiscal 2026 and JPY 13 million in fiscal 2027. Applications close at noon on Nov. 25, and the work runs to Oct. 31, 2027.

The survey covers electricity, heat, fuel, and energy storage technologies in Japan and overseas. It excludes in principle solar, wind, geothermal power and heat, and biomass, which NEDO said already receive sustained policy and R&D support, and excludes hydrogen, ammonia, nuclear, and fusion outright.

The contractor must compare the technologies it identifies on their technical features, R&D and commercialization trends, deployment potential, and barriers to commercialization, using quantitative indicators where possible, including patent filings and investment trends. It must also assess the regional conditions, uses, or markets under which each technology could be deployed, interview two or three experts, research institutes, or companies, and draw out implications for NEDO’s future R&D support. An interim report is due by the end of fiscal 2026 and a final report by Oct. 31, 2027.

NEDO said that alongside expanding major renewables, Japan needs R&D on technologies suited to each region’s natural, geographic, and social conditions to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. It plans to select the contractor in early December and publish the result on its website in mid-December.

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