USA has announced $7.5 million to help advance India’s power grid as part of their commitments to ensure access to affordable and reliable energy in both countries.
The Ministry of Science and Technology and industry will match the commitment of US’ Department of Energy, bringing the total commitment to $30 million.
The US-India collaboration for smart distribution system with storage (UI-ASSIST) was selected as the new consortia for Smart Grid and Energy Storage under the US-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC).
To help pave the way to a more advanced distribution grid that will allow greater use of distributed energy resources such as microgrids and energy storage, the new consortia will bring together experts from academia.
Together with their counterparts in India, the center will conduct research and deploy new smart grid and energy storage technologies that will modernise the grids of both the nations to make them “smarter”, while increasing resilience and reliability.
Through JCERDC, the US’ world class installations and national laboratories will contribute their expertise and capabilities as India expands energy access to its remote areas, improves its grid reliability and resilience, and strengthens its energy security.
The US participants will gain insight from India’s grid modernisation efforts — a potential export market for US equipment worth billions of dollars — and promote researcher access to India’s grid operational experience.