The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) will provide $100 million in financing for the $300-million South Asia Energy Fund, part of the Global Environment Fund (GEF). The South Asia Energy Fund which will invest in solar, wind, hydropower, advanced biofuels and natural gas projects, with focus on Indian investment.
In addition, GEF will form an India-specific sub-fund in association with the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) and other potential Indian investors, targeting India-only investment. This will be in addition to OPIC’s pipeline of more than $280 mn in clean energy and energy efficiency projects in India, said a statement from the US White House. President Barak Obama’s visit to India has given a fillip to India’s plans of increasing its clean energy resources, mainly availability of increased funding for clean energy projects and products.
Prime among the areas of co-operation will be to launch a US-India Energy Cooperation Program, an innovative public-private partnership that will leverage business resources in both the US and India for commercial projects and pilot development initiatives in clean energy and efficiency.
The President’s visit will also accelerate establishing a Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center, that will mobilise up to $100 mn in public and private sector funding over five years for research and development on potential breakthrough technologies. The Center was conceived as part of the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE), initiated two years ago to promote cooperation in clean energy solutions.
Besides, the Export-Import Bank will provide substantial financial support for the purchase of US goods and services to be used in the development of significant renewable energy and natural gas projects in India. On the first day of Obama’s visit to Mumbai, the Export-Import Bank and Anil Ambani’s Reliance Power had signed an agreement on providing $5 billion in financial support to Reliance Power for the purchase of US goods and services to be used in the development of up to 8,000 Mw of gas-fired electricity generating units and up to 900 Mw of renewable (solar and wind) energy facilities.
India is targeting to generate 10 per cent of its electricity generation from renewable sources by 2015. Currently, India has close to 17,000 Mw of installed capacity in renewable energy resources, mainly dominated by wind energy, and this contributes only four percent of power generation.
Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, India and US are discussing how to facilitate the role of US firms and solar equipment in India’s renewable energy projects, such as refining existing requirements for the use of domestically-manufactured goods in those projects to permit imports of advanced solar technologies.
The US is also partnering with India to improve its understanding of the country’s unconventional natural gas resource potential under the Global Shale Gas Initiative (GSGI) and PACE, and new bilateral public-private efforts to transform commercial buildings’ energy efficiency. First, major Indian companies – including Infosys and Wipro – will join American companies such as Marriott, Target, and Walmart in piloting a program to ensure continuous energy-efficiency improvements in their facilities. Going forward, India and the US will initiate a strategic dialogue among their governments, utility regulators, and private-sector partners regarding programs to promote efficient equipment and appliances and will have technical cooperation on ‘cool roofs’, a promising and low-cost way to improve commercial buildings’ efficiency.
