Australia is positioning itself as the major supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe as Germany takes the lead in slashing its reliance on coal-fired and nuclear power stations. 
High-level lobbying between the two nations is intensifying with tens of billions of dollars at stake over potential contracts for German-designed submarines for Australia and Australian gas for German power stations.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government are pushing for German shipping group ThyssenKrupp to win Australia's submarine tender worth $30 billion.
The Turnbull government wants Germany to lock in Australian gas exports for its energy needs as it phases out nuclear power over the next seven years, and coal-fired power over the next three decades.
With $160 billion of LNG projects under construction, the federal government expects Australia will become the world's largest exporter of LNG as early as 2020 and is targeting the German electricity market as an entry point to the rest of Europe.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann is leading the push to expand Australia's mostly one-sided trade relationship with Germany in high-level talks between the two countries.
"There are some geographical challenges, of course, like how to you get it [the gas] there," Senator Cormann said.
"We believe with some creative thinking ... there are some ways that you can commercially work around these sorts of challenges."
The German government has promised the country will have 80 per cent renewable energy by 2050, with the remainder of its energy needs to be provided by gas-powered stations.
The prestigious Fraunhofer Society, which has EUR2 billion ($3 billion) a year in research funds, is working on Germany's energy security as it shifts from nuclear and coal power to mainly renewable energy.
Niklas Hartmann, Fraunhofer's head of energy systems and markets, said Germany would need four times its current renewable capacity to reach its 2050 goal. "We will always need a back-up, and we will always need gas-fired power stations as the back-up," Dr Hartmann said.
He said Germany was debating the future of its gas supply, with the public debate focused on reducing the reliance on Russia for the nation's energy needs.
"Canada is in there and, of course, Australia [as potential gas suppliers] but there is also the Middle East and Qatar," Dr Hartmann said.
After the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany - the fourth largest economy in the world - decided to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022.
German ministry of energy officials will visit Australia early next year to start talks with the domestic LNG industry about the logistics of shipping LNG to Europe.
Energy companies, including Woodside, Origin Energy and Santos, face stiff competition in the looming LNG production boom from the US, which is also racing to become the next big gas supplier to the world.
Woodside chairman Michael Chaney, Senator Cormann and Australia-Germany Chamber of Commerce president Lucy Turnbull will work with their German equivalents early next year to implement the recommendations of the Australia-Germany Advisory Group, which include "a strategic relationship" on energy security.
The author travelled to Germany as a guest of the German government.