President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Economic Affairs Minister Peter Altmaier inaugurated the seventh Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD) 2021. More than 10,000 political decision-makers from all over the world met again in Berlin and virtually, to discuss current challenges of the global energy transition under the motto “Towards Climate Neutrality”. The roll-out of a global hydrogen economy as well as other energy storage solutions, the energy transition in the transport sector but also in the building sector were the main topics discussed. On the high level panel “The Green Decade – Road to 2030” on 16 March, Shri Alok Kumar, Honourable Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Power and Co-Chair of IGEF stated:

• Of the major global economies, India is probably the only one on its way to reaching its emission reduction targets.
• Today, India is the third-largest market for solar in the world.
• India is increasing its share of renewable energies. But this also requires balancing and storage (…) in batteries or via green hydrogen. (…) India needs a lot of international cooperation to work on these two technologies to further bring down the cost.
• Regional cooperation is important (…) India calls for the integration of power grids as fast as possible to utilise the advantages of the different time zones (e.g. transportation of solar energy in regions in which the sun has already set) (…) to make solar energy even more profitable.
• The third most important challenge is the market integration of renewable energies.
• All new coal fired power plants have to be highly efficient supercritical and ultrasupercritical technologies.
• Around 228 coal fired power plant units with a capacity of 16 GW have already been shut down.