A virtual ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Strategic Energy Partnership (SEP) to review progress, highlight major accomplishments, and prioritiz new areas for cooperation was co-chaired on July 17, 2020 by U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and of Steel Shri Dharmendra Pradhan.

 

They announced new areas of research on transformational power generation based on supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles and advanced coal technologies, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).

 

Besides, the US Secretary of Energy and India's Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas & Steel, the virtual meeting was attended by U.S. Ambassador to India Kenneth I Juster, Indian Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu and Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST) Prof Ashutosh Sharma along with other concerned officials.

 

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Ashutosh Sharma stated that the collaboration between India and United States has grown over the years under the Programme for Accelerating Clean Energy – Research (PACE-R).  The ongoing collaboration on smart grids and energy storage is being implemented by consortium comprising of 30 Indian and US entities with investment of US $ 7.5 million each by India DST and US DoE (US Department of Energy) with matching amount provided by the consortium.

 

He added that this project addresses essential issues related to the adoption and deployment of smart grid concepts along with Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) including storage in the distribution network for its efficient and reliable operation and will also provide policy directions for the societal acceptance, impact and value of the integrative solutions and emerging role of utilities as Distributed System Operators.

 

Prof Sharma also added that the dialogue between US-DoE and India’s DST on clean coal technologies, Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO2) Power Cycles and Carbon Capture Utilisation & Storage (CCUS) technologies has progressed well and common priorities for collaboration have been evolved. He also added that the one of the notable outcomes of the dialogue is participation of India in the multilateral platform for Accelerating CCUS Technologies (ACT) through which avenues have been generated for possible US- India collaboration.

 
The United States and India share an all-of-the-above approach to energy security and energy access.The two countries recognise the importance of Clean Energy Research, Development and Innovation and 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.