India-EU Partnership on Energy Research in RE and Smart Grids

India-EU Flagship Call for cooperation in energy research and innovation, mainly in renewable energy and its integration in the energy system.

India-European Union (EU) Flagship Call on Integrated Local Energy Systems was announced at India Smart Utility Week 2020. This partnership between Indian and the EU will help in Clean Energy and Climate and this partnership will foresee strengthened cooperation in energy research and innovation, mainly in renewable energy and its integration in the energy system. The collaboration can make energy supply cleaner, more efficient and affordable to all.

This Indo-EU flagship call is fully in line with both the European Union’s and India’s involvement in Mission Innovation (MI), a global initiative of 24 countries and the European Commission (on behalf of the European Union), committed to reinvigorate and accelerate global clean energy innovation with the objective to make clean energy widely affordable. This Indo-EU Flagship call is expected to give novel solutions encompassing local integration across various energy vectors and increase the share of renewables in the energy mix and high energy efficiency.

At the event, India and Sweden also announced the India-Sweden Collaborative Industrial Research & Development Programme. The joint Programme, co-funded by the Indian Department of Science & Technology (DST) and Swedish Energy Agency, will bring together world-class expertise of Sweden and India to address challenges in the area of Smart Grids. Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST, and Dr. Robert Andren, Director General, Swedish Energy Agency signed the Protocol of Cooperation between Swedish Energy Agency and DST discussed how this will benefit both countries.

“With India raising its ambition for renewable energy manifold, research, development and innovation the area of Smart Grids assume high priority as an essential enabler. High research development and innovation investments, especially, in partnership and collaborations, can accelerate Smart Grid technologies development in the near future. Sharing the common vision on sustainability, Sweden and India are adding one more collaborative programme to their already vibrant partnership portfolio,” said Sharma.

He said that during the last five years DST has set up 3 major international smart grids networked virtual centres and partnered with 24 countries for smart grids research, development and innovation. As co-lead of Mission Innovation (MI) Smart Grids innovation challenge, DST has supported 9 MI projects envisaging partnership of 17 Indian and 20 Foreign Institutions across 9 countries. DST has already made an investment of 60 million USD in Smart Grids.

India-Sweden Industrial led Research & Development collaborative programme on Smart Grids at a collective investment of 5 Million USD  will help to transform the clean energy sector into a secure, adaptive, sustainable and digitally-enabled ecosystem and provide reliable and quality energy for all.

Dr. Andren said, “Regardless of the differences between our countries, we share the objectives of a sustainable society and future. Sustainable energy supply is a prerequisite for all societies and therefore we need modern power infrastructures that allow highly increased amounts of renewable energy. Another common challenge we share is the transformation into a fossil-free transport sector. These are just two examples of areas where India and Sweden can benefit from concrete co-creation and sharing experiences from each other.”

DST, Government of India and the Swedish Energy Agency have created a funding mechanism through which companies may seek support for joint Research and Development projects. The India-Sweden programme aims to foster and support the development of collaborative Research and Development projects that bring together companies, research organisations, academics and other collaborators from both countries for the joint development of innovative products or processes. The project should aim to develop technologies that can be commercialised after two years through cooperation between India and Sweden. 

The Swedish Energy Agency commits 2.6 MUSD over four years for research and innovation collaboration in the area of smart grids with India. DST will also fund a matching investment of INR 18 Crore for the support of Indian partners towards industrial Research and Development projects, focused on co-development and innovation towards new products, processes or technologies. Product Adaptation projects will be funded under this new programme.