U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri met in Washington D.C. to take another step towards a greener future and to review the progress under the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP). This partnership will focus on areas like renewable energy, energy efficiency, and new green technologies for both countries to work together.

During the meeting, they discussed so many important areas of clean energy innovation and assured working to improve clean energy manufacturing and create secure and reliable energy supply chains.

They welcomed collaboration on the new National Centre for Hydrogen Safety in India and partnership on the 2nd International Conference on Green Hydrogen held in September 2024.

This platform will focus on developing technologies for hydrogen energy, offshore wind power, geothermal energy, and energy storage.

The partnership highlighted the efforts to decrease the cost of green hydrogen and showcase its use in buses, tractors, and other heavy equipment. 

The integration of renewable energy into the power grid is also a key highlight of this discussion. Both countries launched an Energy Storage Task Force to develop long-duration storage technologies. This will help the grid to operate smoothly and supply power 24/7, even when renewable energy sources like solar or wind are not available. States like Assam and Haryana in India will benefit from renewable energy storage projects.

India’s efforts to make cleaner transportation were also a main part of the discussion. Indian Railways was praised for its goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2030 also the promotion of electric vehicles (EVs) and a new initiative to deploy 10,000 electric buses across India were appreciated.

The U.S. and India also emphasized the importance of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), which can help lower emissions in the aviation industry. 

This meeting showed that the U.S. and India are committed to working together for the climate crisis and achieving clean energy goals.

Source: