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New UserUS to help India meet climate goals with coal: Elizabeth SherwoodRandal
01 Sep 2016
What role is the US playing in the development of clean energy in India?
The broad contours of our cooperation in clean energy involve work on solar deployment,
work on biofuels and work on building efficiency. Now, because of the agreement between
Prime Minister Modi and President Obama last year, a new element of work has begun on
storage batteries and grid integration of renewables, which are crucial to the successful
deployment of renewables on the scale that Prime Minister Modi envisions for India.
We are placing a department of energy officer in the US embassy in New Delhi to advance this cooperation. This is very special because
we only have a few Department of Energy representatives around the world. The Department of Energy does not have a big diplomatic
core, unlike the State Department. But we select countries where we really believe that having a presence on the ground can make a
difference and we believe that in these times we have that opportunity in India.
When there is such close cooperation and understanding between the US and India on the issue of increasing deployment of
clean energy, why has the US complained to the WTO against the domestic content requirement in India's National Solar
Mission?
There is a long story here and I won't go into the details. We are very committed to close cooperation on clean energy deployment. We
also have a strong commitment to flourishing trade relations with India. We do have significant concerns about the local content
requirement and to be honest, it is our judgement that the local content requirement will raise the cost of deploying the clean energy
solutions which Indians need. I will not get into all the negotiating details. We are trying to find a way to go forward with our Indian partners
because it is important to us that India succeeds in achieving its goals on the broad deployment of solar energy.
How big a setback is the bankruptcy of the US renewable energy giant SunEdison? It has substantial assets in India, both
commissioned and under construction, which are all being sold now. Concerns are being raised about the viability of renewable
energy projects, if such a big company could go under.
Businesses rise and fall, but fundamentally we see tremendous growth in clean energy and particularly in the solar sector in the US. The
solar sector is growing at about 20 times the rate of the rest of our economy. It's very dynamic, growing a huge number of jobs and
opportunities for the American people. It has that potential around the world as well.
SOurce: ET