The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for a pact with US to establish the Pace Setter Fund of Rs 50 crore, which aims to accelerate commercialisation of innovation in off-grid clean energy solutions.
"The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today gave its ex-post-facto approval for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation to establish the Pace Setter Fund," an official statement said.
The signing of MoU will help accelerate commercialisation of innovative off-grid clean energy solutions by providing early-stage grant funding, which would allow businesses to develop and test innovative products, systems and business models, it said.
The MoU will help cooperation through technical and commercial innovation and advancement of clean energy in off-grid space. The India-US corpus of about Rs 50 crore (USD 8 million) has been drawn on a 50:50 sharing basis.
According to statement, the fund will support the Promoting Energy Access through Clean Energy track of the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE) between India and United States of America.
This MoU was signed at New Delhi on June 30, 2015.
The Government of India and the US have announced the launch of a new initiative "Promoting Energy Access through Clean Energy (PEACE)".
This ambitious cooperation is a new tract under the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE), a flagship initiative on Clean Energy that combines resources of several US agencies and Government of India ministries.
This has also been listed in the Joint Statement during the visit of the President of the USA to India in January, 2015.
