Today, during the US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) Ministerial Meeting, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep S. Puri emphasized the critical importance of bilateral clean energy engagement to strengthen energy security and accelerate clean, safe and a just energy transition.
Joint Ministerial Statement on the US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership:
•Amid volatility in global energy markets, the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasing climate-related challenges, the United States and India reiterated their commitment to accelerate a just and sustainable energy transition. As climate and clean energy leaders, the United States and India share a common vision to deploy clean energy at scale during this critical decade to reduce emissions and achieve climate change mitigation goals, taking into account diverse national conditions.
•Through regular consultations on global energy markets, efforts to strengthen collective energy security, and deepening technical engagement to support economy-wide decarbonization, the two countries are proactively addressing multiple crises facing the world through the US-India Clean Energy Strategic Partnership.
During the meeting, the two ministers reviewed the progress in the entire spectrum of partnership in the energy sector. They noted with appreciation the huge increase in bilateral energy trade achieved over the past few years. They also welcomed increased cooperation on clean energy between the two countries’ stakeholders, which facilitates expanded investment in clean energy, including new technologies.
The ministers also underlined the importance of ensuring reliable energy supplies to ensure balanced energy markets, including India’s support for the US initiative to release oil from strategic oil reserves and the importance of diversification towards clean energy sources.
Ministers emphasized that climate and clean energy cooperation should promote energy access, affordability, energy equity, while promoting sustainable economic growth and fair energy transitions. Ministers also recognized that ambitious national climate and clean energy targets require coordinated action and implementation at all levels of government to ensure their viability and sustainability. Capacity building and the exchange of best practices, including best practices with all stakeholders, were also highlighted as critical components to achieving countries’ climate and clean energy ambitions.
India and the United States discussed progress in ongoing efforts to advance new fuels and technologies and electrify and decarbonize end-use sectors. Discussions covered hard-to-reduce sectors and ministers were briefed on various initiatives, including joint R&D on smart grids and energy storage and new cooperation on carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) technologies and the potential to explore collaborations on other new technologies under the US-India Partnership for Advanced Clean Energy Research (PACE-R). Ministers noted the importance of facilitating increased investment in energy to ensure sustainable, affordable, reliable, resilient and cleaner energy systems.
Enhanced bilateral efforts include:
• Strengthening the energy grid to ensure reliable, affordable and resilient clean energy supplies, including smart grids and energy storage; Assessment of grid-integrated buildings, electric vehicles and other distributed energy sources to support load management; Progress in the development and deployment of renewable energy, including supporting India’s goal of reaching approximately 50 percent of cumulative installed capacity from non-fossil fuels by 2030;
• Enhancing energy efficiency and energy savings in appliances, buildings and the industrial sector; Electrification and decarbonisation of the transport sector including the creation of an enabling ecosystem through the establishment of electric vehicle (EV) financing facilities in India; Reducing emissions across the oil and gas value chain, including efforts to introduce methane detection and mitigation technologies;
• Decarbonisation of the industrial sector through electrification efforts, carbon capture and storage and the introduction of other new clean energy technologies; Enhancing collaboration between India and US Department of Energy laboratories and agencies, such as EIA, and in energy data management, modeling and low-carbon technologies.
Ministers also reiterated the importance of private sector engagement to facilitate investment, inform policy and accelerate technology adoption. To that end, the United States and India continue to convene public-private working groups on hydrogen and biofuels and announced the launch of a new working group on energy storage to support the large-scale integration of renewable energy needed to support the clean energy transition.
Ministers welcomed collaboration between Indian and US companies through a memorandum of understanding to introduce methane abatement technologies in India’s city gas distribution sector under the Low Emission Gas Working Group to help reduce emissions in the oil and gas sector. Agencies from the US and Indian governments have demonstrated a number of successes across five technical pillars of cooperation:
1) Energy and Energy Efficiency,
2) Renewable Energy,
3) Responsible Oil and Gas,
4) Sustainable Growth,
5) Emerging Fuels and Technologies.
Ministers welcomed expanded efforts under the US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership to support a just energy transition to meet today’s unprecedented energy security and climate and energy challenges.
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