Mission Innovation 2.0

• Recently, the Union Minister of Science & Technology addressed the Mission Innovation (MI) to mark the beginning of phase-2 of the mission or Mission Innovation 2.0.
• India played a leadership role in MI Steering Committee and is a member of the Analysis and Joint Research and Business & Investor Engagement sub-groups.

Key Points

Mission Innovation:

Formation:

• Mission Innovation was announced on 30th November 2015, on the sidelines of the Paris Climate Agreement to undertake ambitious measures to combat climate change.

Membership:

• It is a global initiative of 24 countries and the European Union to accelerate global clean energy innovation.

Principle:

• Commitment by all members to seek to double their clean energy innovation investments over five years in selected priority areas.
• Each member according to its own priorities, policies, processes, and laws independently determines the best use of its funding and defines its own Research & Development priorities and path to reach the doubling goal.
• In many cases, MI members prioritise parts of their whole energy innovation budget within their baseline.

Objectives:

• Enhance the public sector investment to a substantial to a substantial level.
• Increased private sector engagement and investment.
• Increase international collaboration.
• Raising awareness of the transformational potential of  innovation.

Innovation Challenges (IC):

• Innovation challenges are a major part of the mission innovation that is aimed at leveraging research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) in technology areas that could ultimately result in effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy security, and creating new opportunities for clean economic growth.
• There are 8 innovation challenges under the mission innovation:
• IC1 – smart grids, IC2 – Off-grid access to electricity, IC3– Carbon capture, IC4 – Sustainable biofuels, IC5 – Converting sunlight, IC6 – Clean energy materials, IC7 – Affordable cooling and heating of buildings, IC8 – Renewable and clean hydrogen.
• The first phase has shown that work done under ICs have mobilized in a relatively short period, relying on members’ leadership and voluntary efforts to advance IC objectives.
• These resources have dramatically accelerated the availability of the advanced technologies that will define a future global energy mix which is clean, affordable, and reliable.

Mission Innovation 2.0:

• To achieve the shared goal of accelerating innovation, all the members have agreed to develop a second phase (2.0) that includes:
• An enhanced Innovation Platform building on current activities to strengthen the global clean energy innovation ecosystem and to accelerate learning.
• New public-private innovation alliances – Missions – built around ambitious and inspirational goals backed by voluntary commitments that can lead to tipping points in the cost, scale, availability, and attractiveness of clean energy solutions.