As a joint program under Mission Innovation, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which aims at enhancing innovation for the clean energy transition. The parties signed the agreement in New Delhi.

The MoU aims to deepen their co-operation in support of clean energy innovation to accelerate research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of clean energy technologies in India and recognize the need to support the generation of data for policy-making and improve knowledge of good policy practice for innovation in India and around the world.

Key Highlights of the MoU

• Sharing of analysis and policy recommendations related to energy RD&D.
• Exchanging experiences and best practices of mapping, tracking and estimating public funding with the objective of developing appropriate data collection formats for use in data collection and analysis for India.
• Developing a methodology for mapping and estimating private sector investment in energy RD&D in India.
• Identifying other relevant sources of finance for energy innovation in India, such as multilateral financial institutions and investors in early-stage innovative enterprises.
• Conducting analysis of policy environments that will facilitate and catalyze RD&D related to new energy technologies in India.
• Jointly identifying possible priority areas for accelerating energy innovation, including investment opportunities and supportive policy actions in line with the goals of Mission Innovation.
• Encouraging and facilitating participation by the Parties’ representatives in energy innovation and energy RD&D seminars, workshops, and meetings organized or hosted by one or both parties or India’s DBT Mission Innovation unit, as appropriate.
• Disseminating good energy innovation and energy RD&D practice in India to other countries, as relevant.
• Facilitating participation of Ministry of Science and Technology, GoI, and other relevant Indian entities in IEA Technology Collaboration Programs (TCPs).

Co-operation under this MoU will be coordinated by the Mission Innovation India Unit within the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and for the IEA by its International Partnership and Initiatives Unit (IPI). Activities under this MoU will be undertaken by experts or analysts from the parties or from third-party organizations, as agreed jointly depending on the competencies required.

IEA and FBT will cooperate in organizing joint workshops at the national, regional and international level, including capacity building for collection and analysis of public RD&D funding in India, researching and sharing data, analysis, tracking and modeling tools; joint analysis on mutually agreed topics; jointly developing training and capacity building materials; informing each other about relevant activities, outputs, accomplishments and facilitating mutually beneficial interactions.

Recently, the government also approved the launch of “Scale Up of Access to Clean Energy” program for the period financial year (FY) 2018-19 and FY 2019-20.

The program is one of the four components under the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) project on Scale Up of Access to Clean Energy for Rural Productive Uses (India ACE Project), which is being implemented in the states of Assam, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa.

In July 2018, IEA had commented in its World Energy Investment 2018 report that investment into India’s renewable energy sector was more than the investments made in the conventional energy (fossil-fuel based) projects in 2017. This milestone was the first of its kind, IEA added.