India and Australia sign letter of Intent to scale up low cost solar and clean hydrogen

New Delhi: India and Australia on  Monday signed a letter of Intent which will work in reducing the cost of new and renewable energy technologies and scaling up the manufacture and deployment of ultra-low-cost solar and clean hydrogen.

The letter of Intent (LoI) was signed during the  4^th India – Australia Energy Dialogue, co-chaired by Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, R.K. Singh and Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor from Australia.

“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,” said the official statement.

“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 a focus on renewables, energy efficiency, storage, EVs, critical minerals, mining, etc,” it said.

During the meeting, Climate Finance was also highlighted by India for meeting the Energy Transition goals of developing countries.

“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, also presented the progress till date and the forward action plan under the respective JWGs,” it said.

India and Australia also stressed that 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,” the statement said.

Apart from the power sector, the two countries also agreed that there are many desirable areas of cooperation agreed under the other JWGs like reducing costs of Green Hydrogen; cooperation in the sphere of coal-based energy security and resource deployment; investment opportunities in the minerals sector; exploring the potential for an LNG Partnership, among other areas.