Japan - Fostering international cooperation in renewable energy

The Centre for Renewable Energy aims to works closely with a number of domestic and international partners to build effective long-term partnerships and synergies, and to advance the work in collaboration with other leading institutions and initiatives su pporting renewable energy deployment. To initiate and strengthen existing scientific and technological cooperation with leading international institutions is therefore a priority for the SFFE. The Board of SFFE has agreed on USA, Japan and China being p riority partner countries for the year 2006, in addition to European partners. This is coordinated with the international strategy of the NTNU Strategic Research Area Energy and Petroleum - Resources and Environment. More information regarding the Strateg ies and plans for the Research Area is attached. The project foresees the reinforcement of already initiated contacts with: * AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan); * NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Dev elopment Organization, Japan); * Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT); * The University of Tokyo; The following activities are planned to ensure that research collaboration with the above potential partners is achieved: Activity 1; Workshop in offshore r enewables, as part of the ongoing SFFE project; Planned in April 2006; Thematic areas will be wind and wave farms; All potential partners listed above will be invited; the workshop will be hosted by NTNU/SFFE. Lab tours will be organized. Activity 2; Gro up participation with PhD students from NTNU/SFFE to the conference "Renewable Energy 2006", 9-13 Oct. 2006, Makuhari, Japan. Activity 3; Meetings with partners in Japan aimed at getting guest researchers and identifying synergic areas for concrete actio ns.