Kazakh-German Energy Dialogue

In 2023, the Kazakh-German Energy Dialogue continued to support Kazakhstan's energy transition towards greater sustainability and climate protection. The main activities focused on advising on the development and implementation of Kazakhstan's Energy Efficiency Concept, drafting a Biogas Investor's Guide to promote the biogas market, and contributing to the development of Kazakhstan's National Hydrogen Strategy. 

Since mid-2021, hydrogen has been at the top of Kazakhstan's energy policy agenda as well as on the agenda of the Kazakh-German Energy Dialogue. Hydrogen plays a crucial role in Kazakhstan's Decarbonisation Strategy 2060, adopted in 2023. It directly decarbonises various economic sectors, including industry, energy, and transport. Additionally, it can balance out fluctuations in power generation through the large-scale integration of renewables, envisioned in the strategy. In this context, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym Tokayev, has instructed the government to develop a National Hydrogen Strategy by 2024.  

The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan has invited dena and the Energy Dialogue to support the development of a National Hydrogen Strategy for Kazakhstan and to provide input based on the valuable German experience in developing and updating the National Hydrogen Strategy. The main challenge is to develop a strategy that meets the needs of Kazakhstan's energy sector.  

In order to consult Kazakhstan adequately it was crucial to provide a high-quality, country-specific analytical framework that would meet the needs of the country. Therefore, several studies were prepared as part of the Energy Dialogue in 2023, addressing key issues related to the development of the hydrogen market in Kazakhstan, such as support mechanisms, sales markets and water supply issues for the production of green hydrogen.  

On the other hand, Kazakh and international companies potentially interested in hydrogen projects in Kazakhstan were involved in the discussion and their input was used for formulating policy recommendations. To this end, dena and the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) have initiated a Hydrogen Initiative Group for Business, which meets regularly and promotes German-Kazakh hydrogen cooperation in addition to working on the content of the strategy. 

Thanks to these efforts, dena was able to submit its comments on the draft strategy to the Kazakh Ministry of Energy in November 2023. At the same time, the ministry invited dena to join the steering committee responsible for finalising the strategy in 2024.