Renewable energy and climate change expert Dr Dilawar Singh is preselected by WA Labor for the Australian Senate
As we wait for the announcement of the federal elections this year, the Indian community in WA will be happy to know that one of their own will be seeking to become an elected representative.
A successful entrepreneur in the field of sustainable energy for over twenty years, Dr Dilawar Singh is now keen to contribute his knowledge, expertise and experience for the betterment of the nation.
“I would like to be part of decision-making process in matters that affect our lives,” he told Indian Link.
With his technical and business experience in the field of energy including energy efficiency, solar photovoltaics and solar thermal, wind, and mini and micro hydro power, he will be eager to influence policy in the new energy sector, and advocate for his industry.
It is an area where he has some 35 years of experience as a researcher, policy maker and business manager.
Dr Singh’s company Sun Brilliance Group, where he is Chairman and CEO, supplies and integrates solar power systems. He has consulted on renewable energy projects in developing countries for UNDP, UNECAP, UNIDO and UNESCO. As well, he has served on industry boards, delivered addresses at national and international conferences, published in scientific journals, and been conferred the title Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University.
Dr Singh is just as passionate about youth affairs and education.
“There is some degree of distress in the post-mining economy, especially among the youth,” he observed. “There are 100,000 jobless, and no government plans about what to do. We need to build industry to increase GDP, bring in manufacturing to provide employment.”
Investment in his own industry, large-scale renewable energy, has floundered in the last two years, thanks to a lack of long-term policy in the Abbott years. And this despite the fact that Australia has some of the best renewable energy resources in the world.
Still, thanks to strong entrepreneurial acumen, Dr Singh was able to establish a subsidiary company in New Delhi recently, to take advantage of the growing solar energy market in India. (It was where he founded the Bio Energy Society of India (BESI) way back in 1983, the Renewable Energy and Environmental Development Society of India (REEDS) in 1991, where he developed the world’s first solar powered ‘bio-toilets’, and where he received the UNESCO Young Scientist Award after he finished his PhD at IIT Delhi).
Dr Singh’s impressive track record in R&D, inventions and innovations has already helped improve life for many consumers, some in the poorest sections of society in India. Today, his intimate knowledge of climate change science, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints can help do the same for Australian society.
Dr Singh joined the ALP three years ago.
“My own values have for long fit well with those of Labor,” he noted, adding, “I also think the ALP has a better record in reaching out to multicultural communities.”
The North Coogee resident is well-known in Perth’s Indian community, of which he has been a part since 1992. A life member of the Indian Society of WA, and the founder of Hindi Samaj of WA, formerly known as Hindi Academy, Dr Singh also has a keen interest in community work, especially cultural and literary activities.
We’ve begun to see Indian-origin candidates on the election scene in increasing numbers in recent times. While a small handful have made it at the local council level, so far only two have got to parliament, Lisa Singh in the Federal Parliament in 2011 and Daniel Mookhey in the NSW Parliament in 2015. That both are from the ALP might be a source of much motivation for Dilawar Singh.