India and the USA announced the setting up of two financial assistance programmes worth $60 million for supporting India’s much-needed clean energy initiatives including in solar power and other renewables.
The USA has jointly launched with India, the new efforts to spur greater investment in India’s renewable energy sector, including efforts that can serve as a model for other ISA member countries.
An announcement in this regard came after the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
This includes the creation of a $20 million US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF) initiative, equally supported by the US and India.
This is expected to mobilise up to $400 million to provide clean and renewable electricity to up to 1 million households by 2020.
India and the US committed themselves to establish the US-India Clean Energy Hub as the coordinating mechanism to focus the US government’s efforts, in partnership with leading Indian financial institutions, to increase renewable energy investment in India.
The two leaders also agreed on a $40-million US-India Catalytic Solar Finance Programme, which would be equally supported by the US and India.
This would provide much needed liquidity to smaller scale renewable energy investments, particularly in poorer, rural villages that are not connected to the grid, and could mobilise up to $1 billion of projects.
This would help in expansion of handholding support to Indian utilities that are scaling up rooftop solar and continuation of successful cooperation with USAID on “Greening the Grid”.
