Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Sep 12: India’s energy and infrastructure industry is looking to the 18th BRICS Summit to deliver concrete cooperation among member nations in manufacturing, investment, technology and supply chains, particularly in critical minerals, energy storage, biofuels and infrastructure.

With BRICS bringing together major energy producers and consumers, industry leaders believe the grouping can help convert its combined resource strength into manufacturing capacity and resilient supply chains.

“Our wishlist is straightforward. It includes easier cross-border investment, technology partnerships in minerals, storage and biofuels, and development-bank financing for the infrastructure that connects them,” Arman Puri, director at Hindustan Power, told Business Standard.

Puri said India, as the host, has an opportunity to build supply chains and manufacturing capabilities around the resources available across BRICS nations. He said the grouping is particularly important for energy companies as it brings producers and consumers involved in the energy transition to the same platform.

The BRICS countries collectively account for a significant share of global oil, gas and critical mineral production, while India is among the world's fastest-growing consumers of these resources, making the summit particularly relevant to the energy sector, Puri said.

Indian industry is seeking outcomes that translate cooperation into actual projects. In the critical minerals sector, this could include frameworks for processing technology, long-term supply agreements and financing for midstream facilities in India, allowing a greater share of value addition to take place domestically.

Puri said the Centre of Excellence launched by the energy ministers on grids and storage should lead to joint pilot projects, technical cooperation and greater interoperability among member markets. He also pointed to the experience of several BRICS members in large-scale ethanol and biogas production as potentially valuable for India's biofuel programmes.

The summit could also have wider implications for the global energy landscape at a time when the West Asia crisis has highlighted vulnerabilities in energy security and supply chains.

“With India at the helm and heavyweight energy players like Russia, Iran, and the UAE at the table, the Summit’s agenda, anchored in resilience, innovation, cooperation, and sustainability, signals a clear intent to move from dialogue to significant action,” said Debmalya Sen, president of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA).

Sen said the adoption of guiding principles on smart grids and energy storage at recent ministerial meetings, along with the operationalisation of the BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage, represented progress in cross-border technology cooperation.

He said the industry expects the summit to produce concrete results, including faster pilot projects, harmonised standards and coordinated efforts to secure critical mineral supply chains required for battery manufacturing and modernising electricity grids.

Sen also highlighted India's role in steering BRICS towards practical solutions, including the use of digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence in the energy sector and stronger links with micro, small and medium enterprises and startups.

The proposed BRICS Digital Public Infrastructure Repository and knowledge-sharing networks could help member countries scale advances in clean energy and storage technologies, he said.

For India's energy storage sector, the summit represents an important strategic opportunity, with decisions taken at the forum potentially influencing the ability of domestic companies to strengthen grid resilience, prepare for future energy requirements and tap opportunities in renewable energy and storage technologies.

Industry leaders said BRICS cooperation is particularly relevant because countries do not necessarily need to develop the same energy solutions independently. Instead, faster mechanisms are needed to share technologies and practices that have already proved successful.

Large Indian renewable energy companies believe that core technologies generally do not need to be reinvented for every market. Instead, differences usually arise from regulations, grid maturity, local execution conditions and coordination among stakeholders.

Bikesh Ogra, vice-chairman and global chief executive officer of Jakson Green, said the energy transition had moved beyond the ability of any single country to provide a complete blueprint. Recent disruptions to global supply chains, he added, have further underlined the need to strengthen energy security and build resilience.

Ogra said India was demonstrating the potential of solar energy and green fuels at scale, with more than 100 GW of renewable capacity already in its project pipeline, while simultaneously developing an ecosystem to bring manufacturing facilities onshore to support the energy transition.

China, he noted, has demonstrated the possibilities of utility-scale energy storage and large-scale manufacturing, while Brazil has decades of experience in biofuels and hydro-backed electricity grids. The UAE, he said, has shown the importance of capital availability and execution discipline in large-scale energy transition projects.

“Forums like the BRICS Summit 2026 matter because they bring leaders and policymakers together to shorten that learning curve: an approach proven in one market or geography can be adapted, not reinvented, in another. That's the real dividend of this kind of cooperation - faster, cheaper learning for all economies,” Ogra said.

The industry therefore expects the BRICS Summit to move beyond broad declarations and create mechanisms that can translate cooperation into investment, technology partnerships, manufacturing opportunities and stronger energy supply chains across member countries.