Bridging innovation and commercial scale key to clean energy transition: Industry leaders

New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) Industry leaders on Wednesday stressed the need to accelerate the transition of new energy technologies from evaluation to large-scale commercial adoption, saying the biggest challenge is not innovation but bridging the gap between proven technologies and widespread deployment.

Speaking at the Think Change Forum on “New Energy: Taking It from Evaluation to Adoption”, Dr. Ajay Mathur, former Director General of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), said new technologies must be rigorously evaluated during their development, but once they have matured and proven to be cost-effective, the focus should shift towards scaling up their deployment.

He said technologies continue to evolve throughout the innovation journey, making evaluation essential. However, he noted that once a technology has demonstrated its maturity and economic viability, extending the evaluation phase unnecessarily can delay its wider adoption. According to him, large-scale deployment of proven technologies is now the key priority.

“It is equally important to continue assessing emerging technologies while ensuring that mature solutions reach the market as early as possible,” Mathur added. He said discussions at forums such as these can provide valuable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders and technology developers.

Echoing similar views, AK Saxena, Senior Director at TERI, said many promising technologies fail to reach the adoption stage despite showing potential during trials. He said this often happens because of inadequate investment, policy bottlenecks, lack of commercial confidence or technologies not yet being fully proven.

Saxena said the primary challenge is to create a bridge between emerging technologies and commercial-scale deployment. He added that discussions at the forum largely focused on identifying ways to overcome these barriers and accelerate the transition from innovation to widespread market adoption, enabling new energy technologies to contribute more effectively to the clean energy ecosystem.

–IANS

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