India Signs LoI with Australia for Solar & Hydrogen JV

At the recently held virtual 4th India-Australia Energy Dialogue, the two countries signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to jointly contribute to the advancement of new and renewable energy technology. The focus of this partnership is planned to be on scaling up manufacture and deployment of ultra low-cost solar and clean hydrogen.

"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," said an official statement.

The dialogue was co-chaired by Mr. R.K. Singh, Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Government of India, from the Indian side and Mr. Angus Taylor, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, on behalf of Australia.

Energy transition was a major area of discussion during the dialogue and both the energy ministers spoke in detail about the ongoing energy transition activities in their respective countries, with a special focus on renewables, energy efficiency, storage, EVs, critical minerals, mining etc. In its meeting with Australia, the need for climate finance was also foregrounded by India for meeting the energy transition goals set by developing countries.

The co-chairs of the five Indian joint working groups – Australia Energy Dialogue viz. Power; New & Renewable Energy; Coal & Mines; Critical Minerals; and Oil & Gas, — presented the progress till date and their 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," noted the official statement.

"Apart from the power sector, there are many lucrative 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," the statement added. .