India’s Minister for Non-Conventional Energy Vilas Muttemwar made the commitment to the use of hydrogen-powered vehicles while speaking to a BBC Hindi program earlier this month, saying India had suffered from a lack of planning in the energy sector in the past but was now firmly focused on a sustainable energy future.

“We have huge resources of renewable energy in the country. To begin with we have a potential of five trillion megawatts of solar energy, 70,000 megawatts of wind energy and more than [200,000MW] of Hydrogen energy,” said Muttemwar.

“We are now tapping this potential to meet our requirements.”

Muttemwar said non-conventional energy sources had yet to achieve wide acceptance by India’s industrial sector, but the Government’s commitment to planning a sustainable energy future was necessary to manage the country’s economic development responsibly.

“There is a widespread impression that usage of renewable resources of energy is less cost effective in comparison to conventional resources. I also agree that the capital cost is high, but what we need to understand is that there is no recurring expenditure in the usage of renewable resources,” he said.

The minister also said that India was largely dependent on foreign energy sources, and given the country’s potential for renewable energy, capital investment in renewables would help the country achieve a higher degree of energy independence.

“A powerful movement is required to remove the hesitation concerning the usage of renewable energy resources in the country," he said.

India has also recently launched a significant biofuels initiative, in which petroleum heavyweight BP has decided to participate with $US9.4 million in funding for feedstock research focused on the Jatropha plant [see related story].