Leading Hydrogen Experts Outline National Green Hydrogen Mission and Opportunities at IGHC Virtual Panel
India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission has set one of the most ambitious green hydrogen production targets in the world, but we need clear long-term roadmap and policy frameworks along with systemic actions to accomplish the Mission, as highlighted by leading hydrogen experts at the IGHC virtual panel discussion.
The Government of India kicked off the new year 2023 with announcement of the much awaited National Green Hydrogen Mission, with the total outlay of ₹19,744 crore (~$2.2 billion). Out of this the government has allocated ₹17,490 crore for the Strategic Interventions for GH2 Transition (SIGHT) programme, ₹1,466 crore for the pilot projects, ₹400 crore for R&D, and ₹388 crore towards other Mission components. The overarching Mission objective is to make India a global hub for production, use, and export of green hydrogen and its derivatives. The Mission aims at providing a comprehensive action plan to achieve this objective and catalyse a systemic response to the opportunities and challenges in the green hydrogen sector. The Mission sets the target to reach at least 5 million metric tonnes (MMT) per year green hydrogen production capacity by 2030, with an associated renewable power generation capacity addition of about 125 GW. The Mission foresees wide-ranging benefits – the creation of export opportunities for Green Hydrogen and its derivatives; Decarbonisation of industrial, mobility and energy sectors; reduction in dependence on imported fossil fuels and feedstock; development of indigenous manufacturing capabilities; creation of employment opportunities; and development of cutting-edge technologies. The targets by 2030 are expected to bring in over ₹ 8 lakh crore investments and create over 6 lakh jobs and avert nearly 50 MMT per annum of CO2 emissions by 2030.
The panel discussion revealed critical action areas for the success of the Mission.
- One of the most crucial steps is to develop a technically sound policy framework to define green-ness of green hydrogen and its derivatives. India’s green hydrogen policy [ref] defines green hydrogen as that produced through water electrolysis using renewable electricity, including banked electricity, and produced from biomass. However, in addition to specifying production pathways that qualify as green, it is imperative to develop a robust methodology and policy framework to quantify embedded emissions in hydrogen and its derivatives delivered to demand centers and in their consumption. As such quantification can help accurate accounting of emissions reduction achieved through green hydrogen, it will be important in international trade of hydrogen and if green hydrogen industry wants to avail of carbon trading.
- Technologies across the green hydrogen value chain are known but at different stages of maturity. Although with much smaller investments compared to leading countries in these technologies, India has grown R&D on some of these technologies since the late 1970’s. Panelists at the IGHC event highlighted that now is the time to enable technology development and scaling from lab-level prototypes to commercial pilots. This requires public-private partnerships to establish pilot-scale hydrogen valleys or clusters, as envisioned in the National Mission (Hydrogen Hubs) [ref] and in India’s Hydrogen Valley Platform (accessed 16th February, 2023) (“Hydrogen Valleys”). These clusters would facilitate enable technology innovation that is crucial to integrate diverse technologies in different value chain segments. Panelists highlighted a broad range of green hydrogen applications that India should explore in the short/medium and the long term, including ammonia production, refining, methanol production, hydrogen combustion engine vehicles, blending in residential cooking gas, fuel cell heavy duty vehicles, sustainable aviation fuel, and electricity storage. Learnings from successes and shortcomings in these pilots would be foundational for larger scaling of green hydrogen ecosystem.
- The need for reliable and resilient infrastructures was highlighted as another critical element. Realizing the National Mission’s aspirations of large-scale export of green hydrogen from India requires infrastructure for storage and transportation of green hydrogen and its derivatives and their production facilities near coastal areas to minimize costs. Maximizing utilization of electrolysis plants to reduce the cost of delivered hydrogen will also depend on geographically integrated grid infrastructure with large-scale integration of renewable power generation and storage technologies. As many green hydrogen technologies are emerging technologies, developing internationally harmonized standards and norms to ensure safety is also going to be essential, along with provision of technology validation and testing infrastructure at appropriate scale.
- Given green hydrogen targets set around the world and in India’s National Mission, there is a huge opportunity and cost imperative for India to develop a robust supply chain for manufacturing of green hydrogen technologies. This includes all parts of the green hydrogen value chain from securing critical raw materials supply from abroad and domestically to nurturing domestic manufacturing and startup ecosystem. Member companies of IGHC, such as L&T and ACME are involved in large-scale green hydrogen projects abroad and in India. India has a strong industry base in power electronics, hydrogen and water processing and storage, etc., which has capabilities that are transferrable to green hydrogen value chain. Furthermore, companies like H2e Power and L&T are building new manufacturing capabilities specific to components of electrolyzers and balance of plants. Green hydrogen pilots discussed above should be leveraged to build a strong platform to develop these supply chain and manufacturing capabilities.
These critical action areas necessitate effective use of the Mission outlay, as it amounts to mere 2% of the total expected investment of ₹ 8 lakh crore, and coordinated efforts by multiple stakeholders including the Central Government, State Governments, industrial enterprises, startups, universities and research institutions, and civil society.
