Context:

Recently, India and the USA held discussions on advancements in bilateral cooperation in the energy sector.

More on the news

• A discussion was held between the Union Minister of Power and other senior officials from the Ministry of Power, and a US delegation led by a senior advisor to the President for International Climate Policy.
• The Union Minister also stated that India and the US’s collaboration under the ‘Power & Energy Efficiency Pillar’ of the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) is crucial for achieving energy transition goals.

Key areas of the discussions:

• Grid and Transmission Modernization: Both sides explored the possibility of technical exchanges on efforts to upgrade grid transmission to handle future load growth. 
• Enhancing Manufacturing Capacity: Opportunities to build out India’s manufacturing capacity in critical areas like large transformers were a key topic, aiming to bolster domestic production and reduce dependency on imports.
• Energy Storage Systems: The talks delved into the possibilities of state-to-state partnerships on long-duration energy storage studies, with further collaboration on grid-scale battery storage solutions.
• High-Efficiency Cooling Systems: The discussions highlighted the importance of stimulating manufacturing projects and policies to increase India’s capacity to build, deploy, and export high-efficiency air conditioning systems and fans.

India-US Energy relations

• In 2009, the United States and India launched the Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE), to accelerate inclusive, low-carbon growth by supporting research and deployment of clean energy technologies.

In 2021 an India-U.S. Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership was launched, with two tracks 

• Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) and 
• Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue (CAFMD).
• Hydrocarbon trade with the USA which started in 2017 amounted to US$ 19 billion during 2022. US is our 4th largest crude oil and 2nd largest LNG supplier.
• Hydrocarbons are naturally occurring and form the basis of crude oil, natural gas, coal, and other important energy sources.
• The USA joined the International Solar Alliance (ISA) in 2021 and ratified the ISA Agreement in 2022. 
• In 2023 India and USA launched the Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP) to enable lab-to-lab collaboration, pilot projects, testing of innovative technologies, and capacity development.
• In 2023, India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation exchanged letters of interest to each provide up to US $ 500 million to anchor a renewable infrastructure investment fund.