Energy Summit--Transformation to a Low Carbon Future

IIT Madras Energy Consortium hosted the Energy Summit 2022 at the IIT-Madras Research Park. The two-day event that began on December 8^th, witnessed participation from over 400 industry leaders, faculty, researchers, students, policymakers and government officials.

The 2022 edition of the flagship event showcased emerging technologies and focused on climate action in India, and essentially the world, through various sessions. Key themes for this year’s summit were energy efficiency, economics and climate finance; CO2 capture technologies, utilization and storage; hydrogen economy; renewable integration and storage; and transitional energy pathways.

(From Left): Dr Nikhil Tambe, CEO, Energy Consortium, IIT Madras, Prof Satyanarayanan Seshadri, faculty in-charge, Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Dean, Global Engagement, IIT Madras, Sarah Kirlew, Australian Consul General for Chennai, and Monica Kennedy, senior Trade and Investment Commissioner, Australian Trade and Investment Commission, at the Energy Summit 2022

These themes were designed to have the discourse dovetail into India’s five nationally determined contributions towards climate change mitigation, or ‘Panchamrit,’ as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“At the Energy Consortium, we certainly believe that the technology solutions deployed at scale in India will become the solutions for the entire world”, Prof Satyanarayanan Seshadri, faculty
in-charge, Energy Consortium, said.

An ‘Australia - India Centre for Energy’ (AICE), spearheaded by IIT Madras jointly with Deakin University, was also launched during this summit. It will work towards achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 7, which seeks to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” and also specifically in strategic areas such as critical minerals, clean technology, education and innovation, Dr Nikhil Tambe said. 

About Energy Consortium:IIT Madras has seven research initiatives that span the whole spectrum of energy generation, storage, conversion and distribution. The core expertise areas include carbon capture and storage, gas hydrates, coal and biomass conversion to useful chemicals, renewable energy systems including applications in electrolyser technologies for CO2 conversion and green hydrogen, energy storage technologies beyond lithium, and distributed energy management including for AC and DC micro grids. The Energy Consortium brings all these together as one large umbrella effort. The consortium has active participation from more than 50 IIT Madras faculty, with significant technology expertise and demonstrated contributions on the world stage. In addition, over 250 post graduate students (PhD and MS) and about 20-30 post-doctoral fellows are working in various domains related to energy research. Energy Consortium has global energy majors including Shell and Baker Hughes as well as the Energy vertical of NITI Aayog amongst their advisory board members.