CLEANTECH’s economic promise for India

As one of the fastest-growing emerging markets, India needs innovative and technology-driven solutions to boost its growth. The stakes are high, but so are the potential rewards: energy supply, environmental sustainability and rural development. Indian businesses and government are looking for innovative clean-technology applications, while entrepreneurs from the EU, US and Asia-Pacific are willing to tap into India’s tremendous potential in the cleantech sector, with a focus on solar power. Considering the current challenges of the economy, invaluable opportunities are there for both sides - just waiting to be seized.

So far, Cleantech investments have focused on bringing existing technologies to the Indian markets, rather than on developing entirely new solutions. Innovations mainly consist in modifying and aggregating multiple technologies and creating unique business models adapted to the Indian context. Rural/decentralized power is gaining momentum in cleantech investment industries. With the drop of photovoltaic prices and the vast rural and suburban markets that are underserved by grid power, global entrepreneurs are showing great interest in distributed power generation.

Aside from the opportunities found in a captive market of nearly 100,000 villages across the country, investors would also benefit from an organized move. Early this year, the Indian government set up the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) to oversee the National Solar Mission (NSM), tasked with delivering 20GW of installed solar capacity by 2020 at an estimated cost of USD 20 billion. A research and development program was launched in 2010 under the NSM umbrella, to clear the way for the creation of affordable solar-energy systems through international cooperation.

Foreign entrepreneurs, especially from the UK and US, are exploring India’s rural areas and testing the markets for solar applications. They can rely on local partners offering entirely new ways of selling solar-power products. Innovative marketing, employing local villagers, and innovative pricing, such as pay-as-you-use facilities, are being tested. Startups tapping off-grid energy solutions are burgeoning, while innovative technologies applicable to the waste-to-energy and water sectors are emerging, as are other areas of interest for international partnerships. The Cleantech journey has just begun, but holds great promise for India.

Innovative India: Three projects selected for Indo-US clean energy research

Here is a piece of news that should rejoice all those committed to the development of innovative sustainable solutions for a greener future: three Indian projects focusing on the development of renewable energies have been selected for funding under an India-USA agreement. The international partnership announced during President Obama’s 2011 visit to India set up a joint fund and cooperative processes between academic institutions, to support research and development of innovative solutions in green energies.

Under the agreement, three major U.S. research centers (the National Renewable Energy Laboratory NREL, the University of Florida and the Laurence Berkeley National Laboratory LBNL) will team up with three equivalent Indian institutions (the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad and the CEPT University, Ahmedabad) and bring together their brightest minds and their respective expertise to develop breakthroughs in clean energy research. Aside from knowledge and imagination, the international cooperation provides for $12 million (RS 125 crore) in funding over the next five years for each project, thus ensuring resources and peace of mind for scientists to conduct their research in the optimum conditions.

As for the broader framework, this is taking place under the benevolent auspices of the US-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC). This is a quick and exhilarating start for a broad partnership that is barely six months old, providing hope for quick progress and revolutionary results in a field that is critically underdeveloped yet promising for a brighter future.