US to aid India in developing clean energy technologies

The Dollar Business Bureau The United States has agreed to help India in developing renewable energy technologies and a decision to this effect was taken during the US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in January 2015. A statement to this effect was informed by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy (IC), on Monday. India and the US also discussed on the critical importance of expanding clean energy research, development, manufacturing and deployment, which increases energy access and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, during Obama’s visit, the Minister added. Stating that the two governments have also agreed to undertake new agreements to enhance clean energy cooperation, the Minister mentioned about the initiatives like setting up of ‘Innovative Finance Forum’, establishment of ‘PACESetter Fund’ to support innovative clean energy access projects, among others. The Minister also informed that both the countries also agreed to expand current partnership to ‘Advance Clean Energy Development (PACE-D) and Advance Clean Energy Research (PACE-R). The Minister said this cooperation would help in boosting the renewable energy generation in the country, which also includes generation of solar energy significantly.  The Minister further informed that, under the National Solar Mission , the government is planning to Scale up Grid Connected Solar Power Projects from 20,000 MW to 1,00,000 MW by 2022. The Minister further informed that M/s PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. has been engaged as a consultant for formulation of solar energy scale up plan. Under the plan, the company will assess the power efficiency of India and bring out the realistic demand projection and capacity addition plan and the investment required for the process. The company will further analyze the ongoing governmental initiatives under government’s National Rural Employment scheme, among others. This information gains importance in view of the government’s move towards implementation of the plans agreed during Re-Invest 2015, under which the Central government has started interactions with the State Governments to facilitate the fulfillment of the commitments for Green energy projects across the country.    

This article was published on March 16, 2015.