Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan on Friday announced India's plan to double the investment for its clean energy research over the period of next five year.This decision would hike India's current investment from $72 million to $145 million, a government statement said.The minister who was in San Francisco, US, leading Indian delegation to the Mission Innovation also made formal announcement on new joint collaborations with the 21 Mission Innovation Countries, of which the European Union was the latest partner. "Mission Innovation is the noblest mission which will help humanity. This has also touched the heart and soul of our Prime Minister (Narendra Modi)," Harsh Vardhan said.Vardhan announced India’s collaboration with Britain by setting up a Joint Virtual Clean Energy Centre to address the challenges in solar energy and launching a new Research Track on Smart Energy Grids and Energy Storage under the India-US Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Research.
"With super-efficient air conditioners we can reduce the energy demand from 60 Giga Watts of energy to 40 GW, a saving of over 30 per cent. This translates to cost savings in consumer energy bills of $2.8 billion and GHG reductions of 20 million tons of CO2 equivalent," Vardhan said.Mission Innovation was announced on November 30 last year by the leaders of 20 countries to accelerate public and private global clean energy innovation during Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in the presence of Prime Minister Modi. Commenting on India's LED lighting programme as one of the world's largest, the minister said," This programme has seen India lead the way by driving 12 per cent of global LED demand at present, up from 0.1 per cent a couple of years ago".