Mission for Advanced Ultra Supercritical Technologies

India will launch a national mission on advanced ultra supercritical technologies for cleaner coal utilisation at a total cost of $238 million and setting up of two centres of excellence on clean coal technologies at $5 million each. This announcement was made at the 2nd Mission Innovation Ministerial and 8th Clean Energy Ministerial at Beijing, China on June 8.

Other Big Announcements

• A National Mission on methanol and di-methyl ether is being mounted.
• A new centre on solar photovoltaic, thermal storage and solar fuels research has been approved.
• India also announced two MI-centric Funding Opportunities in Smart Grid and Off-grid Access at US $5 million each.
• Joint virtual Clean Energy Centre with UK and Indian Government funding of UK £ 5 million each has been initiated.
• Under the Indo-US Joint Clean Energy Research (PACE – R) the new collaborative public – private programme on Smart Grids & Energy Storage has been approved. India has also embarked upon a joint programme on renewable energy with Norway.

Mission Innovation (MI)

• On 30th November 2015, leaders of 20 countries came together to launch Mission Innovation (MI), a landmark 5-year commitment to accelerate the pace of innovation and make clean energy widely affordable and accessible worldwide.
• MI now comprises 22 economies and the European Commission, representing the European Union, and collectively accounts for more than 80% of the world’s total public financing of clean energy R&D.

Seven Innovation Challenges

• Mission Innovation developed and launched 7 Innovation Challenges in November 2016.
• These Innovation Challenges focus on selected technical area where MI members believe increased international attention would make a significant impact.
• India is Co-leading three Challenges – Smart Grid, Off Grid Access and Sustainable Biofuels.