In the midst of a global pandemic with an enormous human toll that is also affecting energy demand, global energy markets, and sustainable energy growth, the U.S.-India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership has never been more vital.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Steel Dharmendra Pradhan co-chaired a virtual ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Strategic Energy Partnership (SEP) to review progress, highlight major accomplishments, and prioritize new areas for cooperation.
The two countries are also leading joint research and development (R&D) through the U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy-Research (PACE-R) on smart grids and energy storage to increase resilience and reliability of the electric grid. Today, they announced new areas of research on transformational power generation based on supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles and advanced coal technologies for power generation and hydrogen production, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). The United States briefed about continued bilateral R&D engagement on advanced civil nuclear energy technologies through the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group.
Harnessing Innovation
The two sides launched a public-private Hydrogen Task Force to help scale up technologies to produce hydrogen from renewable energy and fossil fuel sources and to bring down the cost of deployment for enhanced energy security and resiliency.
They also signed an MOU to collaborate on India’s first-ever Solar Decathlon® India in 2021, establishing a collegiate competition to prepare the next generation of building professionals to design and build high efficiency buildings powered by renewables.
The sides jointly launched a collaboration between the U.S. DOE National labs and the Indian National Institutes under the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy as part of the newly launched South Asia Group for Energy (SAGE), supported by USAID, for joint research on development and deployment of advanced clean technologies.
Dan Brouillette said, “It helps to have a common perspective on energy. The United States and India share a bedrock belief that there is no distinction between “good” and “bad” energy. We are committed to deploying every energy fuel and technology at our disposal.”
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