5th Meeting of the Energy Transition Working Group

On 9 November 2023, the Working Group 1 "Energy Transition" of the Japanese-German Energy Partnership came together for its 5th meeting. The working group meetings serve to exchange information on current energy policy and energy industry developments in both countries, to reflect on past activities and key topics of the working group and to discuss and define future activities and priorities.

Anton Hufnagl (Federal Ministry for Economics and Climate Action) and Hideyuki Umeda (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) opened the joint meeting as new co-chairs of the working group. The subsequent policy updates addressed topics including the new Building Energy Act, municipal heat planning, carbon pricing and energy efficiency issues in Germany as well as innovation, grid reinforcement plans and developments in renewable energies in Japan among other things.

Following an overview of the working group's previous events and topics, both sides agreed to continue the fruitful dialogue on issues relating to offshore wind energy and extend discussions to PV in the future, for example with regard to the potential of new technologies such as perovskite solar cells (PSC) and challenges related to sustainable and secure supply chains for critical materials.