A TEAM led by an Oxford Brookes University academic has secured £1.5m to improve energy efficiency in millions of homes in India.

Professor Rajat Gupta will lead the team into finding how standards in homes across India could be improved across the country’s five climatic zones.

It is hoped his RESIDE India team’s work will mean a reduction in energy demand, a more secure energy supply network and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Oxford Brookes’ Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Climate Change said: “Through helping to reduce the currently predicted eight-fold increase in residential energy consumption in India by 2050, the RESIDE project acknowledges the extensive benefits that may be accrued across the entire energy sector from the promotion of a new residential building code strongly grounded in evidence applicable to all five of India’s climatic zones.”

The RESIDE India team includes academics from premier research institutions IIIT Hyderabad and MNIT Jaipur and the University of the West of England in Bristol.

The money was announced as part of grants pledged by the minister of state for universities and science, Jo Johnson.