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IESA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Greenstat Hydrogen India for acceleration of hydrogen technology development and establishment of center of excellence in India.
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The government announced in the Union Budget 2021, its plan to launch a National Hydrogen Mission.
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In India, as well as globally, researchers are working towards to develop sustainable technologies for the production and use of hydrogen as an alternate power source.
Pune, India: India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India’s leading alliance on energy storage & e-mobility and Greenstat Hydrogen India, a Norwegian energy organization, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a period of two years to accelerate the hydrogen technology development in India. The objective of this partnership is to collaborate on the establishment of a Norwegian Centre of Excellence on Hydrogen in India and to support the development of green hydrogen technologies in India.
The government of India announced in the Union Budget 2021, its plan to launch a National Hydrogen Mission and may come out with a draft mission in the next two months. For the current financial year, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been allotted Rs 25 crore for research and development (R&D) in hydrogen. Once the draft of the mission is in place, it will be floated for public consultation. There will be five key areas the government will focus on which includes R&D, demand creation, how it can be used in industry, to create an eco-system including policies for this and how-to bring industry on board along with international partnerships. In these five areas, demand creation will focus on what kind of niche products can be taken up and how effectively the fuel can be used in trucks and buses. In the industrial sector, the government is looking at hydrogen as a replacement for coke in the steel industry and making use of the fuel in the fertilizer sector. MNRE has indicated that by 2025-26, the industrial sector will be one of the major recipients of hydrogen.
Speaking on the partnership, Mr. Debi Prasad Dash, Executive Director, India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) says “IESA is happy to partner with Greenstat Hydrogen India to accelerate the adoption of hydrogen technologies in India. For India, Hydrogen presents a potential opportunity to decrease reliance on oil imports and focus on alternate energy sources. In line with the industry needs, IESA launched the MIGHT- (Mobility and Infrastructure with Green Hydrogen Technology) initiative in 2020 for supporting policies to enable use of green hydrogen in both stationery and mobility sector. We anticipate that advanced chemistry cell battery manufacturing mission and hydrogen mission together can enable India to fast-track decarbonization of grid, industrial sector, and transportation sector in coming decade.”
Mr. Sturle Pedersen, Chairman, Greenstat Hydrogen India, said “Leading a broad representation of Norwegian cutting-edge expertise within the hydrogen sector, we are thrilled to be a part of this exciting journey together with IESA, the Indian industry, R&D institutes and the Indian government. Hydrogen is already a dominant part of the energy value chain world-wide; the challenge now is to revert the energy ecosystem back into its natural evolution. Renewable energy must replace fossil fuels, to preserve our habitat, and to preserve our mobility. Hydrogen is the natural energy carrier representing a vital part of the sustainable energy solution together with sustainable battery manufacturing. We look forward to learn from our partners and share our knowledge with great gratitude to our partners.”
Since 2012, IESA has been working to help address enabling policy framework for all forms of energy storage technologies for both stationary and emobility applications. It worked to include hydrogen as part of the National Energy Storage Mission developed for MNRE in 2018. IESA is organizing its 3rd annual event on hydrogen and fuel cell, “India Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Conclave – #IHFC2021” on 25th May 2021 focused on both mobility and stationary applications.
