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In a bid to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, fertilisers, chemical, cement, and refinery industries, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) will soon move cabinet to fix consumption mandates for green hydrogen.
Speaking at the BloombergNEF summit, Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh said that mandate fixation is in process.
“By and large, we have had the discussions and we have come up with some figures, and we will go to the cabinet soon. We have had discussions with the concerned ministries on this. Most ministries want the mandates to be small to start with, but I want a larger mandate for obvious reasons,” Singh said.
Talking about upcoming green hydrogen capacity, the minister said that India already has 5.8 million tonnes (MT) of green hydrogen manufacturing capacity, which translates to around 37 MT of green ammonia manufacturing capacity, under various stages of installation.
“The reason is that our RE costs are among the lowest globally. My cost of setting up 1 MW of solar is about $600,000. So my hydrogen coast will also be the lowest in the world,” he noted.
On consumption mandates, he explained “We amended the Energy Conservation Act, which gives power to government to put down mandates for changing the feedstock from fossil to non-fossil. So I can mandate fertiliser’s , petroleum etc. for instance, I can ask fertiliser’s and petroleum that you are using grey hydrogen or grey ammonia and certain percentage of that has to be green from this year onwards. Gradually escalating it so that 100 per cent of that is green.”
In January 2023, the Union Cabinet approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission with an outlay of ₹19,744 crore from FY24 to FY30.
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The overarching objective of the Mission is to make India a global hub for production, usage and export of Green Hydrogen and its derivatives.
The New Energy Outlook: India report, published on Thursday, by BloombergNEF said that under the Net Zero Scenario (NZS), India’s industrial sector emissions peak in 2031 and begin a steep decline in the mid-2030s as the use of hydrogen and carbon capture increases to decarbonize steel, cement and petrochemical production.
“Domestic demand for hydrogen increases about tenfold, to 53 million tonnes (MT) H2 by 2050. New demand for hydrogen is driven by rapid adoption of hydrogen-fired direct-reduction furnaces in the steel industry, taking the demand to 33 MtH2 in 2050, it projected.
“Currently, most of the hydrogen in India is produced from unabated fossil fuels. By 2050, hydrogen produced with flexible grid-connected electrolyzers powered primarily by renewables becomes the dominant pathway in India under the NZS,” the report added.
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