New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS): India and the US are making significant progress to drive energy innovation, strengthen energy security and accelerate clean energy transitions, including through more focused efforts on clean energy manufacturing and building resilient, responsible, stable, secure and diversified supply chains, it was announced on Tuesday.

According to the India and US Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) ministerial meeting, convened by US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in Washington, DC, energy trade is playing a key role in supporting the national priorities of both the countries.

Both the sides reviewed the initiatives undertaken across the technical pillars under the SCEP, including power and energy efficiency, responsible oil and gas, renewable energy, emerging fuels and technologies and sustainable growth.

The ministers recognised the progress the two countries have made to accelerate development and deployment of emerging clean energy technologies, advancing renewable energy deployment and reliable grid integration, promote energy efficiency, and advance decarbonization of high-emitting sectors like industry, buildings, and transport.

They welcomed the formal launch of the Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP) in August last year, aimed at developing actionable roadmaps for hydrogen, long duration energy storage, offshore wind, and geothermal, through R&D, pilots and demonstration, and incubation-investment-industry networks.

The two nations also welcomed collaboration on the new National Centre for Hydrogen Safety in India and partnership on the second ‘International Conference on Green Hydrogen’ held this month.

Both the countries stressed the importance of supporting large-scale grid integration of renewable energy while enabling flexible and reliable grid operations through energy storage.

The two countries highlighted the importance of modernising the power distribution sector to supply 24/7 reliable power to consumers, welcomed support for India’s smart metering deployment, as well as expanded efforts on inverter-based resources, power market reforms, system inertia estimation, and cybersecurity.

The ministers also commended the Indian Railways (IR) efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2030 and welcomed collaboration to support India’s first round-the-clock renewable energy procurement of over 1.5 GW and development an energy efficiency policy and action plan for all railway facilities.

The ministers welcomed new collaboration on electrification of medium and heavy-duty vehicles, applauding implementation of the PM eBus Sewa scheme for deploying 10,000 e-buses across India.

They hailed the breadth and depth of the US-India partnership to advance progress toward our common clean energy goals and address today’s unprecedented climate challenges.