India-USA Strategic Clean Energy Partnership

Why is in news? India-USA Strategic Clean Energy Partnership Ministerial Joint Statement:

The Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) was held between Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and U.S. Energy Secretary in New Delhi.

During the meeting, the sides noted the growing importance of bilateral energy cooperation between the countries while underscoring the critical importance of bilateral clean energy engagement and the achievements of the SCEP in strengthening energy security, creating opportunities for clean energy innovation, addressing climate change and creating employment generation opportunities.

In this context, the sides welcomed the growing energy trade between the countries which has been consistently scaling new heights and welcomed the commercial partnerships facilitated by the SCEP.

The sides renewed their commitment to work towards a just, orderly and sustainable energy transition, which prioritises access to reliable, affordable, and clean energy supply.

Five technical pillars of cooperation on: 1) Power & Energy Efficiency, 2) Renewable Energy, 3) Responsible Oil & Gas, 4) Sustainable Growth, and 5) Emerging Fuels and Technologies.

Key highlights:

Highlighting that India and the US represent the largest democracies, and the largest and fastest growing economies in the world, the sides underscored the importance of joint action and collaboration not only for bilateral progress but also for navigating the global energy transition.

Reviewed the ambitious and dynamic SCEP mandate, which over the years has deepened and strengthened collaboration across a wide breadth of clean energy work streams, including clean and renewable energy, energy efficiency, increased collaboration in emerging technologies like battery storage and swapping technologies, gas hydrates, advanced biofuels, and hydrogen and electrolyzer production.

Recognised the importance of producing green/clean hydrogen as a critical energy source for global decarbonisation

They emphasized the importance of promoting energy access, affordability and energy justice in each country.

Also acknowledged that successfully achieving ambitious climate and clean energy aspirations necessitates coordinated efforts on development of energy transition roadmaps, capacity building, job skilling, and sharing of best practices at all levels of government.

Both the sides agreed to work toward development of net zero villages in India to support the clean energy transition.

They discussed ways of advancing the positive agenda for efforts under the SCEP to develop and deploy energy storage technologies, expand collaboration in support of their respective national hydrogen strategies and cost reduction goals, and accelerate cooperation on new and emerging renewable energy technologies.

Also welcomed the establishment of the public-private Energy Storage Task Force and related efforts to support large-scale integration of renewable energy needed to support the clean energy transition;

deepened collaboration to scale and accelerate deployment of hydrogen technologies through the public-private Hydrogen Task Force and other efforts in support of their national hydrogen strategies, including a focus on common cost reduction goals;

launch of the U.S.-India New and Emerging Renewable Energy Technologies Action Platform (RETAP) to accelerate development of key technologies to advance common ambitious clean energy goals.

Also welcomed the leaders’ priority of reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector through zero emissions vehicles and continued collaboration on securing funding and enabling affordable and accessible debt and equity financing for the e-mobility sector.

Recognized the importance of the "Electric Vehicle (EV) financing services facility" which will create dedicated funds for e-mobility.

Welcomed cooperation between India and the United States to advance research, development and commercialisation of technologies in the emerging fuels arena, including bio-ethanol, renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuels, and other advanced biofuels as a unique and valued asset to the transition to a cleaner energy future.

The Ministers discussed the role that the Global Biofuels Alliance will play in strengthening markets, facilitating global biofuels trade, development of concrete policy lesson-sharing and provision of technical support for national biofuels programs worldwide.

Also underscored the importance of a stable, sustainable, diversified, resilient, and globally responsible clean energy supply chain to enable energy transition pathways while minimizing risks and uncertainty.

Recognizing the role of carbon capture, utilisation and storage to reduce emissions, the sides agreed to spur partnership in this area by building on existing cooperation and welcoming new collaboration including exploring the geologic carbon storage potential.

The sides also welcomed engagement through the Low-Emissions Gas Task Force to reduce emissions across the sector through deployment of emerging technologies (i.e., CCUS, hydrogen), alternative fuels, and methane abatement technologies.

Acknowledged the collaboration of USAID with various Indian agencies including Indian Railways, NTPC Green National Skills Development Corporation, Skills Council for Green Jobs, and the Forum of Regulators.

The sides welcomed USAID support on feasibility of Green Chemicals for NTPC, recognizing the importance of such initiatives to ensure development of sustainable and clean energy systems.

The sides noted the importance of robust life cycle assessments and building modelling capacity to assess low carbon technologies costs and emissions, and best practices for modelling and analytics of energy consumption.

Both sides launched the South Asia Group for Energy (SAGE) to deepen the engagement to support research, analysis and capacity building activities such as building modelling capacity in Life Cycle Assessment of low carbon technologies and analytics on energy consumption in building sector.

Finally, the sides praised the longstanding joint R&D under the Partnership to Advance Clean Energy-Research (PACE-R), including the US-India Collaborative for Smart Distribution System with Storage (UI-ASSIST) consortium co-led by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Washington State University.

Ongoing collaboration in such areas as:

modernizing the power system to improve reliability, resilience, flexibility, affordability, and sustainability of clean energy systems;

promoting energy efficiency and conservation, including in buildings, appliances, and the industrial sector;

reducing emissions across the oil and gas sector, including through examining methane abatement and transfer and deployment of technologies under voluntary and mutually agreeable terms; and

advancing emerging technologies to support electrification and decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors.