Decarbonization and Clean Energy Technology Research and Development

The clean energy technologies (CETs) being developed to help to lower the carbon intensity of global GDP and decarbonize the global energy system include renewable energy (RE) and other energy supply technologies, as well as battery and other energy storage (ES) technologies, and combinations thereof. The patent regimes of these new technologies, as measured by the climate change mitigation (CCM) and environment-related patents filed, suggest the research and development (R&D) community is regionally widespread albeit concentrated in a number of countries and industries. The research institutions undertaking scientific R&D are located in academia, corporations, and government research institutes and at the boundaries between them. The role of corporate or business enterprise research and development (BERD) is the biggest, especially in the seven countries in this study—China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, the UK, and the USA. This together with low international collaboration suggests R&D is very competitive, especially in Japan, Korea, the USA, and China. However, CET R&D collaboration is increasing, as CCM becomes an increasingly global issue.