Dr. Jitendra Singh Launches Initiatives for Low Carbon Economy

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space Dr. Jitendra Singh visited the Technology Showcase at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium in Goa held on the sidelines of the G20 Energy Transition Ministerial Meeting (ETMM) under the aegis of the 8th Mission Innovation (MI-8) and 14th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM14), during July 19-22, 2023.

He interacted with the participants from the different R&D centres of Department of Science and Technology (DST) at the exhibition.

The Technology Showcase was organized under three parts – Vehicle and Charging, Infrastructure Showcase (by SIAM, TERI, CALSTART, and Drive to Zero), Mission Innovation (by DST), and Clean Tech Start-up (TERI). It featured India’s cutting-edge advances, new and emerging technologies in various sectors and provided a unique experience in clean energy, and DST showcased technologies and innovations by its R&D centres and institutes spread all over the country. The Showcase was a key element of the Clean Energy Ministerial & Mission Innovation meetings.

Dr Singh also announced several funding opportunities and grants to drive clean energy at an accelerated pace, on the day of the Ministerial meeting. These included the Funding Opportunity Announcement 2023 for RD&D in the area of Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage under Mission Innovation 2.0 to undertake Joint Research & Development with member MI countries to identify and prioritize breakthrough technologies in the field of CO2 Capture, Separation, Storage, and CO2 value addition and recounted India’s progress in the area.

Besides this, he also felicitated the National Challenge Winners/grantees under the area of Clean Energy Storage & Green Hydrogen by offering them citation plaques as well as felicitated the winners of four National Challenge Grant projects on High-efficiency PV cells and modules to address the most urgent innovation priority identified under Green Powered Future Mission.

Elaborating on India’s efforts while addressing the CEM 14/MI 8 joint Ministerial, Dr Singh said “For hydrogen, we are in the advanced stage of initiating small-scale Hydrogen Valley and also initiating four Indo-Danish projects. Further, we also kick start four projects of fabrication of champion devices to make efficient solar cells toward Green powered future mission.  Seven R&D projects to develop novel low carbon jet fuel will also be supported and an indigenous 2G ethanol technology developed and demonstrated at 250 kg/day pilot plant scale.”

The Union Minister also launched the Mission Innovation technology compendium, a compilation of the technologies developed through DST supported MI interventions in the area of CCUS, Hydrogen, Smart Grids, building energy efficiency, off-grids and so on to help the country transition to a low carbon economy.