An official delegation with participants from the Indian administration travelled to Berlin for Renewable Energy & Efficiency Week (REEWeek) from 7 - 10 October 2019. The delegation was led by Shri Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Joint Secretary for Solar, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), and Co-Chair of IGEF Subgroup II on Renewable Energies. REEWeek has been annually organised by GIZ since 2011, and happens to be the largest expert workshop for partners of German bilateral development cooperation in the energy sector. 

The objective of the event is to support partners in efficiently promoting national transformation processes towards sustainable energy systems and energy access. This year’s thematic focus was on interlinkages between energy and climate change and the decarbonisation of the energy sector. Shri Sinha led a panel discussion on “Sustainable Energy for all in a Zero Carbon World”. Aside from REEWeek, the Indian delegation undertook numerous technical field visits and held various meetings with officials from the German government and industry associations. This included a visit to the so-called EUREF Campus, a real-world laboratory. At EUREF Campus, numerous institutions and companies work on a shift towards a world of decentralised renewable energy solutions and electric mobility applications. The delegation also paid visits to several electrical storage applications. 

The focus of the visit was Solar + Storage, rooftop solar combined with decentralised virtual power plants as well as agrivoltaics. Agrivoltaics or AgroPV is the beneficial combination of agriculture and photovoltaics to address land scarcity and build a sustainable water-food-energy nexus. Another highlight was a visit to a fully self-sufficient renewable-energy-powered village called Feldheim near Berlin.