INTELLIGENNE

Ask the person who ran the programmes.

Written answers by email from a project manager who has worked inside 32 publicly funded energy and decarbonisation projects in Japan. Write to me in your own language, or in English.
You do not need to be entering Japan. You may simply need to understand it.

WHO THIS IS FOR

If you need to understand how public money moves in Japan

Institutional investors, funds, corporates and research firms looking at Japan's energy and decarbonisation sectors. Companies weighing whether a Japanese programme would carry their technology. Anyone who has read the policy documents and still cannot tell what will actually happen.

Published material tells you that a programme exists. It does not tell you how projects are selected, why applications fail, or how long a decision really takes. Those answers sit with the people who have been through the process.

32publicly funded projects since FY2012
4funding bodies: Cabinet Office, METI's energy agency, Ministry of the Environment, Okinawa Prefecture and its local governments
2 dayswritten answers by email, normally within two business days. Fees are quoted per engagement.

TOPICS

Questions I can answer

  • How national decarbonisation programmes in Japan are funded, and how projects are actually selected.
  • The Okinawa development budget and the Cabinet Office funding scheme for designated projects promoting Okinawa development (沖縄振興特定事業推進費): structure, eligibility and the decision process.
  • Regional microgrids in practice: deployment economics, island grid constraints, and why projects stall.
  • Photovoltaics in non-standard locations — floating installations on agricultural reservoirs, road surfaces and walls — and how they behave under typhoon and salt exposure.
  • Regulation of solar panel recycling in Japan and the resulting materials market.
  • How the national growth strategy affects inbound investment in energy and decarbonisation.
  • Barriers facing overseas technology and capital entering Japan's energy market, and the routes that actually work.
  • The state of pre-commercial marine energy research, including salinity gradient power generation.

WHO YOU ARE WRITING TO

Toshihiro Oyama 小山 聡宏

CEO, INTELLIGENNE. Representative, Okinawa Smart Energy Project. Since fiscal year 2012, involved in 32 projects funded by the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (both headquarters and the Okinawa General Bureau), the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of the Environment, and Okinawa Prefecture and its local governments — principally as project manager, and also as regional and application coordinator, senior researcher and working group member.

Served as project manager on six subsidised projects of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, four of them under the national programme for regional microgrid development, in Yamaguchi, Okinawa, Ehime and Hokkaido. Member of the working group of the joint task force of the Ministry of the Environment and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy on the distributed energy platform programme in FY2019 and FY2020, contributing to the review of issues underlying the national guidebook on regional microgrid development.

Adjunct Faculty in Eco-Business, College of Economics and Environmental Policy, Okinawa International University, now in the ninth year. Sole instructor of the Oyama Seminar (小山ゼミ) at the same university, now in its ninth cohort. Research Fellow at the same university's Okinawa Regional Economics and Environmental Policy Institute. Master of Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus. Doctoral studies at the same graduate school (総合知能工学専攻): coursework and the full term of enrolment completed (単位取得後満期退学).

SME Adviser (Carbon Neutrality), Okinawa Office, Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, JAPAN.

Note: These duties at the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, JAPAN are public-sector support for small and medium enterprises, and are clearly separated from the business of INTELLIGENNE. Enquiries concerning support provided by that body should be directed to its Okinawa Office (official contact page).

BOUNDARIES

What I cannot discuss

Stating this first is not a formality. It is what makes the rest of the exchange worth having.

OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF ANY CONSULTATION

Non-public information obtained through projects I have managed — client names, unannounced plans, the contents of application documents, and exchanges during review.

Information obtained through my adviser role at the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, JAPAN, and any statement made on the basis of that public position.

Anything covered by a confidentiality agreement.

Unannounced calls for proposals, reviews, or award decisions.

Internal technical or financial information concerning specific companies.

The status of applications or negotiations still in progress.

Investment advice. I do not recommend securities or advise on investment decisions. What I provide is industry and policy background.

WITHIN SCOPE

Programmes as described in publicly available materials: calls for proposals, published Q&A, award results and policy documents.

My own publicly disclosed track record, and the general professional judgment drawn from it.

My reading of technologies and programmes already in the public domain.

How to read the published statistics and market data.

HOW IT WORKS

From enquiry to written answer

STEP 1

Send your questions by email. Write in your own language, or in English.

STEP 2

I reply, before any fee is agreed, telling you which of your questions I can answer and which fall outside the boundaries above. If most of them fall outside, I will say so rather than take the engagement.

STEP 3

We agree the scope and the fee. I then send my answers in writing by email, normally within two business days. Where a question requires me to check primary sources before I answer it, I tell you within those same two days how much longer it will take.

STEP 4

If your questions turn out to concern a project you want to build in Japan rather than understand from outside, that is a different kind of work. See Entry into Japan.

I am open to engagements arranged through expert network platforms. If your firm already works with one, you may reach me that way instead. Every engagement, including one arranged through a platform, is handled in writing by email. I do not schedule telephone or video calls.

CONTACT

Send your questions first

Tell me what you need to know before we discuss scope or fees. It costs you nothing to find out whether I am the right person to ask. Everything is handled in writing by email, so there is no call to schedule across time zones.

Write in your own language, or in English. I answer in the language you wrote in, or in English if you prefer.

English and Japanese I handle directly. In other languages I work with translation. The substance of every answer is my own, and if translation leaves anything unclear, tell me and I will put it another way.

Email: info[at]intelligenne.jp
Enquiry form: contact page