The Solar City aims at minimum 10% reduction in projected demand of conventional energy at the end of five years, through a combination of enhancing supply from renewable energy sources in the city and energy efficiency measures. The basic aim is to motivate the local Governments for adopting renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency measures.

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The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has taken up various programmes on new technologies. As part of these programmes, various projects pertinent to research, development and demonstration have been initiated. These initiatives have been at various research, scientific and educational institutes, universities, national laboratories, industry, etc. These projects are helping in the development of indigenous research and industrial base, expertise, trained manpower and prototypes/devices/systems in the country

a. Hydrogen Energy
b. Chemical Sources of Energy (Fuel Cells)
c. Battery Operated Vehicles
d. Geo Thermal Energy
e. Ocean Energy
f. Biofuels

R&D for technology development in industry -driven and goal oriented.

1. Involvement of industry and scientific establishment.
2. Access technological development elsewhere avoiding 'Reinventing the wheel'.
3. Indigenous R&D for new and emerging technologies and improvement of available technologies.
4. Time bound specific tasks for identified R&D activities to be assigned to recognized / identified industry and institutions with clear understanding on the achievement of results.

Research, design and development efforts should invariably lead to manufacture of complete systems, even if these efforts are required to be shared among different institutions. Thus, there would be a need for system integration broadly covering the following areas: -

1. Alternate Fuels (hydrogen, bio & synthetic) to supplement and eventually substitute liquid hydrocarbons;
2. Green Initiative for Future Transport (GIFT) based on Alternate Fuels for land, air & sea applications to supplement and eventually substitute fossil-fuel systems;
3. Green Initiative for Power Generation (GIPS) based on Alternate Fuels for stationary & portable power generation applications to supplement and eventually substitute fossil-fuel systems;
4. Standalone new and renewable energy products to provide cost-effective energy for cooking, lighting and motive power;
5. Distributed new and renewable energy systems to provide cost-competitive energy supply options for cooking, lighting and motive power;
6. New and renewable energy products for urban, industrial and commercial applications, including energy recovery from urban and industrial wastes and effluents; and
7. MW scale grid interactive renewable electricity systems to contribute towards supplement and eventually substitute fossil-fuel based electricity generation.