The United States will provide India with $7.5 million to improve the national grid. The fund is provided by Department of Energy (DOE), United States Government, and will go towards running a joint U.S.-India five-year project that will help advance the development of the power grid.

The Indian Ministry of Science and Technology and industry partners will match DOE’s commitment, bringing the total fund amount to $30 million, stated a DOE release. The DOE release also stated, “This step furthers DOE’s collaboration with India under the U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE).”

“This new consortium demonstrates U.S. and Indian commitments to ensuring access to affordable and reliable energy in both countries,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry. “We know that continued grid innovation will promote economic growth and energy security in the United States and India,” added Mr. Perry.

The U.S.-India collaborative for smart distribution system with storage (UI-ASSIST) was selected as the new consortia for smart grid and energy storage under the U.S.-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC).

To help pave the way to a more advanced distribution grid that will allow for greater use of distributed energy resources, such as microgrids, and energy storage, the new consortia will bring together experts from academia, DOE’s national laboratories, and industry. Together with their counterparts in India, the center will conduct research and deploy new smart grid and energy storage technologies that will modernize the grids of both nations to make them “smarter,” while increasing resilience and reliability.

India-U.S. collaboration has been increasing in the renewable energy sector.

Mercom previously reported, the Government of India and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. government’s development finance institution, launched the US-India Clean Energy Finance (USICEF) Facility Initiative with $20 million (~Rs.1.36 billion) to initiate the flow of up to $400 million (~Rs.27.1 billion) in public and private financing for renewable power generation in India by 2020.