Research report
The Potential Role for Biomass as a Long-Duration Store of Energy – Scoping Study
11 November 2025
Views from Japan’s Science City: Reflections on Global Energy R&D at RD20
One of the responsibilities of UKERC, as a focal point between UK and international energy research communities, is to act as the UK representative for RD20, an initiative set up by the Japanese government in 2019 to bring together leading research institutes in the G20 group of nations to accelerate innovation to combat climate change. RD20 runs an annual conference and leadership session to progress this initiative and to attempt to deepen collaboration efforts between the partner institutions. This year’s conference, the 7th, was held in Tsukuba, Japan, in late September, and UKERC sent a delegation consisting of Rob Gross and Jamie Speirs as our representatives on the leaders panel, as well as Mike Colechin, Callum MacIver and myself as speakers in the technical sessions.
Tsukuba is a city of contrasts. Situated just outside of Tokyo, around a 55-minute train journey from its famous Akihabara district, it was largely built from the 1960s onwards as a planned ‘science city’. Low-rise and low-density for a Japanese city, it sports a modernist, 20th-century futurist urban design, with lavish pedestrian plazas, many parks, and lengthy cycle paths passing over wide highways. Tsukuba hosted the 1985 Science and Technology Expo, and many of the buildings surrounding the conference venue were left over from this event. As a whole, it has a sleepy, faded feel, many leagues away from the hyperactive neon-lit streets of a stereotypical Japanese city. However, looks can be deceiving. The city is host to 60 national research institutes, two universities and over 240 private research facilities. Over the past few decades, nearly half of Japan’s public R&D budget was spent in and around Tsukuba.
The RD20 conference spanned four days – two for technical presentation sessions, one for site visits and workshops, with the final day being the leaders’ session. There were three technical sessions, focusing on synthetic fuels, energy storage and AI/digitalisation. UKERC contributed three presentations to the technical sessions – the potential role for biomass as a long-duration store of energy by Mike Colechin from Cultivate innovation, the security of supply challenges for a weather dependent GB electricity system from Strathclyde’s Callum MacIver, and finally, my presentation on the role of digitalisation technologies in enhancing electricity system resilience.
The technical sessions were quite different in focus from a regular conference – instead of focused presentations around a single area, the range of presentations was broad, as major R&D institutions from around the world presented their projects. As most of the RD20 contributing institutions are large, hard-science bodies, the presentations were highly technical and largely supply-side focused, with more of an emphasis on individual technologies than whole-system integration. This global scale also showed the considerable difference in countries’ approaches to decarbonisation. Whereas in the UK we are focused on power-system decarbonisation followed by electrification of heating and transport, other countries’ research projects from Japan to Indonesia and Australia emphasised the roles of energy carriers, including hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic fuels, as well as biomass exploitation. It was a good example of the localisation of decarbonisation approaches – while in the UK we have excellent wind resources and nearby neighbours to trade electricity with, many nations rely on long-distance transport of energy and will be using biomass and solar resources more so than wind.
The digitalisation and AI session I presented in was also interesting for its breadth of topics, from my work on energy resilience to using AI to run an autonomous battery testing lab and to identify potential international collaborators for research projects. There was a feeling, as I think we’ve seen in many other areas, of AI being an important and transformative technology, but we need more refinement in how it should be best applied in energy systems and research endeavours. This may improve as AI and digitalisation technologies become more embedded and unproductive avenues are identified, but I came away with the feeling our sector could focus much more on this area.
On day three, we had a short lab visit to AIST (the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology), where we viewed synthetic fuels, a computational cluster being used to analyse smart meter data for DSR purposes, and a 256-qubit quantum computer, which was a fun break from conference life. Day four, the last conference day, was Leaders Day, and us technical presenters gratefully vacated the floor for the RD20 global delegation leaders, including our own Rob Gross and Jamie Speirs. This was a session of high-level keynotes, multilateral discussions and taskforce reporting, with each country’s leaders sitting proudly behind their flags. Of particular note is that the RD20 conference is heading to South Africa next year to coincide with their presidency of the G20, and that UKERC, with the University of Strathclyde, have been selected to host the 2027 RD20 summer school for early-career researchers. This is an excellent achievement for Jamie Speirs and his team, and the event should be something to look forward to – check out our blog from this year’s Summer School for some ideas on what to expect.
Following the conference dinner, the UKERC delegation decamped to Tokyo to enjoy one last night of Japanese sightseeing and entertainment before the long journey home. It was a fascinating few days and gave some unusual insights into the priorities and research directions of very disparate global institutions. RD20 is a noble concept, bringing together global research funders and laboratories to work towards a common direction in sustainability – an obvious way to accelerate progress and reduce redundancy. This collaboration also presents a unique opportunity: by understanding and navigating the competing pressures from domestic funders and political considerations, as well as the diverse local geographies and market models which inform local transition pathways, RD20 is well positioned to lead on innovative, resilient research pathways for global decarbonisation. I wish them the very best of luck over the next few years – here’s hoping for more fascinating research and discussions in South Africa!