U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP)

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7-Oct-2022: U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership Ministerial Joint Statement

Today, during a Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP), U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep S. Puri underscored the critical importance of bilateral clean energy engagement to strengthen energy security and to accelerate clean, secure, and just energy transition.

U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership Ministerial Joint Statement:

Amidst volatility in global energy markets, continuing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly frequent climate-related challenges, the United States and India reiterated their commitment to accelerating 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 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 U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership.

During the engagements, the two Ministers reviewed progress across the entire spectrum of the energy sector partnership. They noted with appreciation the tremendous increase in bilateral energy trade achieved over the last few years. They also welcomed the increased clean energy collaboration between stakeholders of both countries which is facilitating expanded clean energy investment, including in emerging technologies. 

The Ministers also underscored the importance of ensuring reliable energy supplies to ensure balanced energy markets, including India’s support for the U.S. initiative to release crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserves, and the importance of diversifying to clean energy sources.  

The Ministers stressed that climate and clean energy collaboration should promote energy access, affordability, energy justice, while supporting sustainable economic growth and just energy transitions. The Ministers also recognized that ambitious national climate and clean energy goals require concerted action and implementation at all levels of government to ensure their viability and sustainability. Capacity building and exchanging best practices including with all stakeholders were also highlighted as critical components to achieving the countries’ climate and clean energy ambitions.

India and the United States discussed progress on continued efforts to advance emerging fuels and technologies and electrification and decarbonization of end use sectors. The discussions covered hard-to-abate sectors, and the Ministers were informed about various initiatives, including joint research and development on smart grids and energy storage and new collaboration on carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, and the potential to explore collaboration on other novel technologies under the U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy-Research (PACE-R).

The Ministers noted the Importance of facilitating increased energy investments to ensure sustainable, affordable, reliable, resilient and cleaner energy systems.

Enhanced bilateral efforts include:

  • Strengthening the power grid to ensure reliable, affordable, and resilient clean energy supply including through smart grids and energy storage;
  • Assessing grid-integrated buildings, electric vehicles, and other distributed energy resources to support load management;
  • Advancing renewable energy development and deployment, including to support India’s goal of achieving approximately 50 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030;
  • Advancing energy efficiency and conservation in appliances, buildings and the industrial sector;
  • Electrifying and decarbonizing the transportation sector including creating an enabling ecosystem through setting up an Electric Vehicle (EV) financing services facility in India;
  • Reducing emissions across the oil and gas value chain including efforts at deploying methane detection and abatement technologies;
  • Decarbonizing the industrial sector through efforts at electrification, carbon capture and storage, and deployment of other clean emerging energy technologies;
  • Deepening cooperation between Indian and U.S. Department of Energy labs and agencies, like the EIA, and on energy data management, modeling, low carbon technologies.

The Ministers also reiterated the importance of private sector engagement to facilitate investment, inform policy, and accelerate technology deployment. To that end, the United States and India continue to convene public-private tasks 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 U.S. 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.

Agencies from across the U.S. and Indian governments demonstrated a number of accomplishments across the five technical pillars of cooperation on: 1) Power & Energy Efficiency, 2) Renewable Energy, 3) Responsible Oil & Gas, 4) Sustainable Growth, and 5) Emerging Fuels and Technologies.

The Ministers welcomed expanded efforts under the U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership to support a just energy transition to meet today’s unprecedented energy security and climate and energy challenges.

9-Sep-2021: Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP)

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri today co-chaired a virtual Ministerial meeting with U.S. Secretary of Energy Ms. Jennifer Granholm to launch the revamped U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP).

The SCEP is launched in accordance with U.S.-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden at the Leaders' Summit on Climate held in April this year.

The SCEP organizes inter-governmental engagement across five pillars of cooperation: (1) Power and Energy Efficiency; (2); Responsible Oil and Gas; (3) Renewable Energy; (4) Sustainable Growth and (5) Emerging Fuels.

Minister Puri and Secretary Granholm reviewed the progress, major accomplishments, and prioritized new areas for cooperation under the various pillars.

Minister Puri emphasized that the revamped clean energy partnership will intensify the efforts from both sides to take advantage of the complementarities that exist between US and India - advanced US technologies and rapidly growing India’s energy market, for a win-win situation through a cleaner energy route with low carbon pathways.

The two sides announced addition of a fifth Pillar on Emerging Fuels, which signals joint resolve to promote cleaner energy fuels. A new India-US Task Force on Biofuels was also announced to build on the scope of work on cooperation in biofuels sector.

There would considerable emphasis on upscaling cooperation under the renewable energy pillar by working on several projects and system-friendly practices in India’s renewable energy sector. US Secretary lauded India’s renewable energy target of 450 GW by 2030, and offered to closely collaborate in realization of this target by India.

Both sides will strengthen the electric grid in India  to support large-scale integration of renewables, including through smart grids, energy storage, flexible resources, and distributed energy resources, and ensure reliable and resilient grid operations, as well as promoting energy efficiency and conservation measures.

The two sides also announced rechristening of Gas Task Force to India-US Low Emissions Gas Task Force, which would continue to forge collaboration between U.S. and Indian companies on innovative projects to support India’s vision of gas-based economy. The two sides also agreed to continue to develop better understandings on methane abetment under this Task Force.

Both sides have initiated institutionalization of India Energy Modeling Forum with the constitution of Six Task Forces for carrying out research and modeling in different areas. Joint Committees have been set up to deliberate on Energy Data Management, Low Carbon Technologies and Just Transition in Coal Sector.

Building on the success of the first phase, the two sides agreed to expand the scope of the work to include smart grid and grid storage as part of the second phase of the Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE)-R initiative anchored on the Indian side by the Department of Science & Technology.

The meeting also reviewed the progress on the India-US Civil Nuclear Energy cooperation.