India-US announce new research areas on transformational power generation

India and the US have announced new areas of research on transformational power generation based on supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles and advanced coal technologies, including carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS), the Ministry of Science and Technology said on Saturday.

This emerged at a virtual ministerial meeting of the US-India Strategic Energy Partnership (SEP) on Friday to review progress, highlight major accomplishments, and prioritise new areas for cooperation.

The meeting was co-chaired by Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.

Besides Pradhan and Brouillette, the virtual meeting was attended by US Ambassador to India Kenneth I Juster, Indian Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu, and Secretary of Department of Science and Technology (DST) Professor Ashutosh Sharma along with other concerned officials.

Speaking on the occasion, Sharma said the collaboration between India and the 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 a consortium comprising 30 Indian and US entities with an investment of $ 7.5 million each by India's DST and US Department of Energy (DoE), with matching amounts provided by the consortium, he said.

Sharma said 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.

It will also provide policy directions for societal acceptance, impact and value of the integrative solutions and emerging role of utilities as Distributed System Operators.

The DST secretary said the dialogue between US' DoE and India's DST on clean coal technologies, sCO2 power cycles and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies has progressed well and common priorities for collaboration have been evolved.

He said one of the notable outcomes of the dialogue is the participation of India in the multilateral platform for Accelerating CCUS Technologies (ACT) through which avenues have been generated for possible US-India collaboration.