US, France Give Big Push to India’s Renewable Energy Sector

Two MOUs - one  between the French Agency for Development and Solar Energy Corporation of India on innovation in Solar Energy and another between the French commission for Atomic and Alternative Energies (CEA) – Bollore’ Blue Solutions, and Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) on storage, grid management and e-mobility along with a Joint Announcement of Demand Aggregation Pilots were made between India and the US at the Country sessions of France and the US at the 2nd Global RE-INVEST India-ISA Partnership Renewable Energy Investors’ Meet & Expo held recently.

Anand Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said that the Indo-French and Indo-US collaboration and cooperation have stood the test of times and grown stronger. ISA is a testimony of the Indo-French collaboration, which was launched by Indian PM and French President on the sidelines of CoP 21. Mind you that India is a huge market for renewable and companies from all across the world can come and invest. India always invites French and American companies to invest in India and grow with the country. The secretary hoped that the capacity addition would give immense growth opportunity to domestic renewable energy.

Brune Poirson, French Minister of State for Ecological and Inclusive Transition said that President Macron and PM Modi are deeply involved in issues related to climate and together they launched the ISA. The time is ripe for political action, political signal and for companies to act and find solutions. The two countries have the vision, they know where they want to take their countries and their citizens i.e. they want to fight climate change. Lauding the renewable energy growth in India, she said that the goal to generate 40 percent non-fossil energy by 2030 and 175 GW of renewable energy, including 100 GW of solar energy, by 2022, is impressive. She said that she often refers to India, for renewable energy, which grew by 81 percent in three years, from 2015 to 2018. ISA is a collaboration between India and France, where together the two countries can collaborate and help other continents, for instance, Africa.

Isabella Detwiler, Deputy Minister-Counselor, US Embassy/Delhi, India said that nearly $76 billion investment is required to fulfill India’s vision 2022, public funds alone will not be enough. What is needed is innovative private capital to turn Prime Minister Modi’s dream into reality. In collaboration with the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, the Task Force has three goals for the same– supporting the standardization of clean energy, establishing a payment security mechanism to ensure faster payments in the renewable energy sector and fostering diversification of solar panels. The US wants to leverage the private Indo-US collaborations in clean energy.