India and the United States announced the launch of a new energy task force to support large-scale integration of renewable energy needed to support the clean energy transition.

The announcement of the initiative came after the ministerial meeting of the US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) in Washington.

During the meeting, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri and US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm underscored the critical importance of bilateral clean energy engagement to strengthen energy security and to accelerate clean, secure, and just energy transition.

US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP)

On the margins of the April 2021 Leaders Climate Summit, President Biden and Prime Minister Modi announced a new high-level US-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership, to accelerate progress toward shared climate and clean energy goals. 

The Agenda 2030 Partnership includes two tracks of engagement: 

1) The Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP)

2) The Climate Action and Finance Mobilisation Dialogue. 

As climate and clean energy leaders, India and the US 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 different national circumstances. 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 the multiple crises that the world faces through the US-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership.

The SCEP was revitalised in September 2021, placing greater emphasis on electrification and decarbonization of processes and end uses, scaling up emerging clean energy technologies, finding solutions for hard-to-decarbonize sectors, and deploying technical solutions.

Engagement with the private sector and other stakeholders remains a priority to facilitate rapid technology deployment and create economic opportunities for both countries.

The US Department of Energy and India’s ministry of petroleum and natural gas lead overall engagement under the SCEP with robust interagency engagement on both sides.

The SCEP organises inter-governmental engagement across five pillars of cooperation: 

1) Power and Energy Efficiency

• It works to improve the reliability, resilience, flexibility, affordability, and sustainability of the power system. It encourages the reliable grid integration of the massive amounts of renewables that India aims to install as part of its 500 GW non-fossil installed capacity goal, while also addressing rising energy demand. 

• It works to modernise and improve grid infrastructure through smart grid technologies, energy storage, distributed energy resources, clean energy installation, digitisation, and enhanced cybersecurity. It also works to reduce emissions through the use of emerging technologies like carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS). 

• Furthermore, the pillar works to transform utilities in order to facilitate India’s power market transformation. It will also support the integration of a regional power grid to allow for greater development. 

• Finally, the pillar promotes super-efficient appliances, improves energy efficiency and conservation in buildings and industrial processes.

2) Renewable Energy

It has the following objectives:

i) Supporting India in achieving 450GW renewable energy target by 2030.

ii) Expanding the use of distributed renewables.

iii) Strengthening the US-India relationship and improving trade ties between the two countries.

The objectives are aligned to drive faster deployment of renewable energy for inclusive and resilient development, taking into account national circumstances and sustainable development priorities. The overarching goal is to enhance equitable economic development, universal energy access, and energy security in India, with broader benefits through South Asia and the Indo-Pacific region as a whole.

3) Responsible Oil and Gas

The priorities are:

• Explore joint cooperation to facilitate reducing the consumption of high-polluting fuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and minimising impacts to the climate.

• Explore joint cooperation to move towards the goal of maximally abated natural gas as a cleaner alternative to coal and other fossil-based fuels for use in the industrial, transportation, and residential sectors.

• Encourage and promote investment, trade, and collaboration opportunities in the form of technology tie-ups, R&D, procurements, etc between the companies and departments from both sides across the entire value chain.

• Explore cooperation to facilitate achieving climate goals by deploying in India carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) technology and advancing alternative fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels for transport and industry.

• Exchange best practices for the development of India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

4) Sustainable Growth

• It takes a broader role in advancing low-carbon development and improving inclusive and sustainable economic growth through climate responsive strategies, long-term plans, and energy data management. India is well on its way to leverage its expanding and diverse economy, capitalise on its demographic dividend and benefit from its rapid urbanisation.

• The country’s growth could be further enhanced by addressing energy issues along with ensuring financial and environmental sustainability as a climate responsible country. 

• India is prioritising strategies which could improve energy security, reliability, and affordability, universal energy access, and resiliency of energy systems to cyber-attacks and extreme weather events. Such strategies also help maintain water and food security over the long-term, reduce health impacts of air pollution, and support environmental stewardship.

5) Emerging Fuels and Technologies

It was launched to help reduce emissions across the energy sector. This pillar will advance clean energy pathways utilising emerging fuels, including converting biomass and other waste resources into cost effective, low-carbon biofuels and bioproducts. Work will be coordinated with other relevant pillars under the SCEP. 

The priorities are:

i) Promote sustainable biofuel production and use to decarbonize all modes of transport, including sustainable biofuels for air and sea transport, and advance waste-to-energy efforts. 

ii) Facilitate public-private dialogue on biofuels development and deployment.

iii) Facilitate the commercialisation and deployment of hydrogen technologies across applications and sectors, including to decarbonize the transport, industry, and power sectors and for use as energy storage. 

iv) Facilitate public-private partnerships, and leverage global partnerships on hydrogen, including to promote safety, codes and standards.

v) Accelerate transport electrification and decarbonization, particularly for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, by increasing efficiencies and reducing emissions of freight transport, advancing deployment of long-haul trucks powered by batteries and fuel cells, enhancing EV charging infrastructure, and collaborating with private industry to accelerate deployment of cleaner vehicles, and development of battery supply chains.

Highlights of the ministerial meeting:

• Welcoming the increased clean energy collaboration between stakeholders of both countries which is facilitating expanded clean energy investment, including in emerging technologies, the two leaders recognised that ambitious national climate and clean energy goals require concerted action and implementation at all levels of government to ensure their viability and sustainability.

• Discussing the progress on continued efforts to advance emerging fuels and technologies and electrification and decarbonisation of end use sectors, they also talked about hard-to-abate sectors.

• The ministers were informed about various initiatives, including joint research and development on smart grids and energy storage and new collaboration on carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, and the potential to explore collaboration on other novel technologies under the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy-Research (PACE-R).

• Puri and Granholm reiterated the importance of private sector engagement to facilitate investment, inform policy, and accelerate technology deployment.

• To that end, the US and India continue to convene public-private task forces on hydrogen and biofuels, and announced the launch of a new energy storage task force to support large-scale integration of renewable energy needed to support the clean energy transition.

• The ministers welcomed collaboration between Indian and US companies through a Memorandum of Understanding to deploy methane abatement technologies in India’s city gas distribution sector under the Low Emissions Gas Task Force to help reduce emissions in the oil and gas sector.

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