The 4th India – Australia Energy Dialogue was held on 15th February, 2022. The dialogue was co-chaired by Hon’ble Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Mr. R.K. Singh from the Indian side and Hon’ble Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Mr. Angus Taylor from the Australian side.
Energy Transition was a major area of discussion in the dialogue and both the Energy Ministers spoke in detail about the ongoing Energy Transition activities in their respective countries with focus on renewables, energy efficiency, storage, EVs, critical minerals, mining etc. The need of Climate Finance was also highlighted by India for meeting the Energy Transition goals of developing countries.
A Letter of Intent between India and Australia on New and Renewable Energy Technology was signed during the Dialogue. This LoI will pave the way for working towards reducing the cost of new and renewable energy technologies and scaling up deployment in order to accelerate global emissions reduction. The focus of this LoI will be scaling up manufacture and deployment of ultra low-cost solar and clean hydrogen.
The Co-chairs of the five Joint Working Groups under the India – Australia Energy Dialogue viz. Power; New & Renewable Energy; Coal & Mines; Critical Minerals; and Oil & Gas, presented the progress till date and the forward action plan under the respective JWGs.
There is an urgent need to focus on advancing technology and clean energy transition. In this context, the agreed forward action plan includes areas like energy efficiency technologies; grid management; R&D collaboration on flue gas desulphurisation, biomass or hydrogen co-firing, water cycle optimisation, renewables integration, batteries and electric mobility.
Apart from the power sector, there are many desirable areas of cooperation agreed under the other JWGs like reducing costs of Green Hydrogen; cooperation in sphere of coal-based energy security and resource deployment; investment opportunities in the minerals sector; exploring potential for an LNG Partnership, among other areas.