Renewable energy gets boost via academics-industry talks on innovation

As a step towards harnessing the true potential of Renewable Energy, TERI University campus at New Delhi played host to a 2-day symposium on “Biofuels & Wind Energy”. As part of Indo-US Research in Renewable Energy, the collaborative partners for this symposium are Michigan State University (MSU, East Lansing, USA) and TERI (New Delhi). Sponsors for the event are Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), and MARG Research & Innovation Hub, Chennai (MARG).

The goal of this MARG/GLIM sponsored symposium is to stimulate the interest of various stakeholders in India, in the research and innovation space of the Renewable Energy domain. Leaders discussed how Innovations would be fast-tracked to produce on–the-ground solutions in the Indian context. CEO Round Table brought together a holistic set of deliberators from industry, government and research institutions for tangible recommendations. CEOs, CTOs, Principal RE Project investigators, and Academics of leading Indian/US institutions participated in the round table.

Michigan State University from USA sent a large delegation of 10 senior faculty members to India, to explore collaborative research opportunities together with Indian scientific and industry research community. There was a presence of around 80 researchers from different spheres of research, knowledge partners, economic partners and government agencies addressing the issue and possible solutions.

Some of the key considerations of the CEO Round Table are on expeditious harnessing of renewable energy sources, removing capacity building road blocks, Renewable Purchase Specification Mechanism, harmonizing central and state legal considerations, financial and fiscal Incentives, technology transfer, R&D cooperation and Public Private Partnership models.

The panelists at the CEO Round Table were moderated by Dr.Baldev Raj, Director, Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Center, under the aegis of neighbourhood collaboration agreement with GLIM. He laid down the roadmap for the collaborative research, stating that industry, academicians & government must strive to create a fat pipeline of initiatives/projects in Energy Sector, so that benefits keep accruing to the society regularly & in sustainable fashion.

Dr.Debashish Roy of IOCL eschewed the confidence in Indo-US collaboration, stating that RE Research is an “idea whose time has come”.

Summarizing the sentiments of the gathering, Prof.S Dhande, Director IIT Kanpur said: the aim should be of leapfrogging, by pursuing game-changing research, while maintaining a passion of excellence across multiple socio-techno-economic disciplines. The stakeholders should thereby setup demonstration facilities at several institutions and places.

The outcome of this discussion is likely to be presented to Planning Commission and concerned ministries.

Commenting on the symposium, Mr.GRK Reddy, Chairman & Managing Director, MARG Ltd. said, “We are happy to partner the TERI, MSU and GLIM in this vital topic of discussion. With India facing an acute shortage of energy in present times, there is an urgent need to tap the immense potential of various renewable energy domains – solar, wind, geo-thermal, bio-mass conversion, hydro etc. A switch to renewable energy sources will not only prove to be optimum utilization of resources, but also due to its low emission level, will bring down the global warming. We at MARG Research & Innovation Hub are glad to provide our continuous support for this cause.”

Some of the key personnel who participated in the symposium were Prof. Satish Udpa, Dean of College of Engineering MSU, Dr.Vibha Dhawan, Executive Director-TERI, Prof.Venkatesh Balan, College of Engineering, MSU, Prof.VVN Kishore, HoD, Dept of Energy and Environment, TERI University, New Delhi, Dr.Marjorie Lueck, National Science Foundation, Prof.H S Mukunda, Dept of Aerospace Engineering, Combustion, Gasification & Propulsion Lab, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Dr. Anil Kane, President, World Wind Energy Association, Prof. Bruce Dale from Biomass Conversion Research Laboratory MSU, Dr. YV Satish Kumar Head Offshore Engineering Infotech, Hyderabad.