Indian and US Governments Sign Pact on Clean Energy Research Centre Formation

India and the United States have officially signed an accord to form a joint Clean Energy Research Development Centre. The agreement signed by Meera Shankar, Indian Ambassador of USA and Daniel Poneman, Deputy Secretary of Energy in the U.S. will allow the formation of a ‘virtual centre’ without any physical location confinements.

The agreement is signed in sequence to the discussions held earlier between Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister of India and Barack Obama, President of United States during the Indian Prime Minster’s visit to Washington last November 2009. During that time both the governments agreed and signed a memorandum of understanding to improve cooperation between the countries in climate change, energy efficiency and energy security sectors. The discussions between the two country heads further led to calculated discussions during June this year.

The virtual centre will assist in a joint research by members consisting of engineers and scientist from both the countries on clean energy. Under the provisions of the agreement the countries will cooperate with each other in areas such as smart grids, improving energy efficiency of buildings, unconventional natural gas, solar energy, clean coal technologies and second-generation of bio fuels.