A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today between the Governments of India and Scotland to drive innovation in renewable energy and support both governments' goals to increase supplies of wind energy, solar power and biofuels.

The agreement was 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.

The MoU, which was facilitated by Scotland's international economic development agency Scottish Development International (SDI), highlights both countries' commitment to jointly developing new renewables technology and encouraging innovation throughout their low carbon energy sectors.

The agreement will boost collaboration between Indian and Scottish Universities and Research institutes and will leverage Scotland's world class energy research, development and deployment expertise.

India represents a large market in which Scottish renewables expertise and technology can be applied and which is attracting significant interest from Scottish companies. Sgurr Energy, the Scottish specialist renewable energy company, has already opened an office in Pune.

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The Scottish Government has ambitions to become the green energy capital of Europe and has a target for 50 per cent electricity demand to come from renewables by 2020. As a result, the sector in Scotland is dynamic in terms of innovation, development and diversification - critical elements for growth of India's energy sector.

"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 Michael 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.

"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."

In Scotland, the practical execution of this long term partnership will be led by the groundbreaking Energy Technology Partnership (ETP), a unique alliance of strong, independent Scottish Universities, currently engaged in world class energy research, development and demonstration. The ETP will coordinate the wealth of Scottish bodies undertaking research and development in renewables and match-make them with Indian counterparts.

(GK/BMcc)