Scotland and India sign renewable energy agreement
Elaine Brass
15th October 2009
The governments of India and Scotland have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly develop renewable energy technology.
The Scottish Development International (SDI), the Scottish international economic development agency, facilitated the MoU, which aims to drive the two countries' innovation of renewable energy and support mutual goals of increasing supplies of wind energy, solar power and biofuels.
The agreement, signed by Mr Deepak Gupta, Secretary to the Government of India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and Michael Russell, the Scottish Government's Minister for External Affairs, will aim to boost collaboration between Indian and Scottish universities and research institutes and will leverage Scotland's expertise in energy research, development and deployment.
India, which has over 7000 kilometres of coastline – meaning huge potential for offshore wind energy – is a large potential market for Scottish renewables expertise and technology to be applied. It may be able to generate almost five times more wind energy capacity than the Indian government's estimate by 2030, if it is able to tap its offshore wind resources.
"Like Scotland, India is blessed with an abundance of the natural resources needed to generate renewable energy and its government is clearly committed to exploiting this in order to secure its energy future and meet the current energy needs of remote and rural communities." said Russell. “We hold a world leading position in the development of offshore wind with the Beatrice offshore wind demonstrator turbines located in the Moray Firth. The lessons learned will be vital to the future large scale deployment of offshore wind across the world.”
Russell continued; "We have world class expertise in the integration of renewable technologies to provide power to remote communities. In addition, the development and deployment of marine energy is supported by the most generous support for commercially deployed marine renewables projects in the UK. Our leadership and innovation in this area can help India achieve its renewables goals, while Scottish organisations benefit from India's own expertise."
India is already attracting significant interest from Scottish companies. Sgurr Energy, the Scottish specialist renewable energy company, for example, has already opened an office in Pune.