National centre for clean coal R&D opened

News:Minister of Science & Technology has inaugurated the National Centre for Clean Coal Research and Development and has also formally launched the Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research(ICER).

Facts:

National Centre for Clean Coal Research and Development:

• The centre has been established as a national consortium on clean coal research and development at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
• The centre is aimed at addressing several critical R&D challenges towards the development of clean coal technologies in tandem with developing supercritical power plant technologies both at material and system level.

Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research(ICER):

• The Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research(ICER) was inaugurated in 2012 at Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
• The centre is equipped with modern facilities to conduct a wide spectrum of energy research through knowledge network of elite researchers.
• The centre is focused on developing sustainable technologies for renewable energy, combustion, concentrated solar power, novel energy storage technologies, hydrogen, biofuels and biomass.
• ICER also plans to expand its activities in several energy-related areas with an emphasis on process and material development in collaboration with the manufacturing industry.

Additional information:

• India is the world’s third largest coal producing country and the fourth largest coal importer.It is expected to increase its coal production to about 1 billion tonne by 2020.
• Further,India aims to increase its power capacity in the next 15 years and a significant portion of the capacity is expected to come from coal.
• Hence,India has been focusing on clean coal technologies in line with its commitments related to climate change.
• Under the Paris climate agreement,India has pledged to focus on clean coal technologies such as shifting towards supercritical technologies for coal-based power plants.