Indian energy startups need stronger links between educational institutions, industry, finance and incubation networks to move from research to commercial deployment, Indian Oil Corporation Limited Chairman A. S. Sahni said at a national energy conference in Pune on Thursday.
Sahni was speaking at “Advancing Energy Innovations”, organised by IOCL, Venture Center, Pune, and the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory. He said India had no shortage of good ideas, but energy startups had initially remained limited because institutions and businesses were working separately rather than as part of a connected innovation system.
According to Sahni, the ecosystem is now being brought together and IOCL will support startups as they move towards industrial use. He said energy startups require more than capital. They also need access to laboratories for large-scale testing, business infrastructure and purchase contracts that can help them secure market opportunities.
IOCL plans to provide startups with access to its laboratory and industry experience, Sahni said. The company’s proposed support is intended to help technologies move beyond the research stage and into practical commercial applications.
The conference also focused on the gap between invention and market adoption. Senior scientist Raghunath Mashelkar said India needed to move beyond the idea of “Make in India” towards “Invent in India” and “Own in India”, with greater attention to domestic patents. He said laboratory technologies would need to reach the market and become useful to ordinary citizens if India was to achieve greater self-reliance in the energy sector.
Mashelkar said progress depended not only on financial resources but also on the combination of knowledge, facilities and national ambition. His remarks placed intellectual property, testing capacity and market access alongside funding as key requirements for energy innovation.
Venture Center Director Premnath Venugopalan said a larger chain was needed to connect research, technology, startups, industry and expansion at scale. The proposed collaboration between the participating institutions is aimed at strengthening that chain, according to the statements reported from the event.
The programme also includes financial assistance of up to Rs 2 crore for each of 30 leading startups working in the energy and communications sectors. The initiative is being implemented through the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas’s MC Square Plus Ignite Foundation. Venture Center has been appointed as the nodal organisation for implementation in Maharashtra, and an agreement related to the arrangement was signed at the event.
The collaboration will focus on moving technologies in clean energy, hydrogen and mobility from research laboratories to industrial applications. The announcement identifies laboratory access, industry engagement, procurement opportunities and financial support as the principal mechanisms for helping startups progress towards commercial deployment.
