Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that India aims to become a global hub for the production, utilisation and export of green hydrogen.

In his virtual address at the inaugural session of the second edition of the International Conference on Green Hydrogen India 2024, the Prime Minister emphasised the critical need to work on technologies for energy transition, such as green hydrogen.

“We want to make India a global hub for the production, utilisation and export of green hydrogen. The National Green Hydrogen Mission is giving an impetus to innovation, infrastructure, industry and investment. We are investing in cutting-edge R&D,” Modi said.

Highlights

Partnerships between industry and academia are being formed. Start-ups and entrepreneurs working in this domain are being encouraged. There is also great potential for a green jobs eco-system to develop. To enable this, India is also working on skill development for our youth in this sector, he added.

Green hydrogen can help decarbonise  industries that are difficult to electrify. Refineries, fertilisers, steel, heavy-duty transportation, and many other sectors will benefit. It can also act as a storage solution for surplus renewable energy, he noted.

Rising potential

Minister of New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi emphasised that green hydrogen presents “plenty of opportunities” to export.

“This expanding sector will bring over ₹8 lakh crore in total investments and generate employment for more than 6 lakh people in the country. With the Green Hydrogen Mission, we are confident of reducing imports of natural gas and ammonia, there will be a total saving of Rs 1 lakh crore,” he noted.

On electrolysers manufacturing, he said there was an overwhelming response from bidders, with bids being almost double the tendered quantity. Around 3 gigawatt (GW) annual manufacturing capacity has been awarded to 15 companies, and will be supported for a period of 5 years, the Minister said.

The total manufacturing capacity to be incentivised under Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) will be 15 GW. Around 4.12 Lakh tonnes per annum (LTPA) production capacity has been awarded to 10 firms in the first tranche. The next tender for 4.5 LTPA production is currently live.

With an additional quantum of 7.39 LTPA of green ammonia, India is awarding incentives for green hydrogen production to more than a million tonnes per annum capacity. The tender for green ammonia floated by India is the largest such tender globally, he added.

The trust that world reposes on India is evident from the fact that 2.55 MTPA of green ammonia exports have already been booked and Indian firms have signed MoUs with companies from Japan, Korea, Norway, etc for supplying green ammonia, Joshi noted.

Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri stressed that India has a natural advantage in producing Green Hydrogen due to the low cost and abundance of solar energy and investments in the power grid. It is the “fuel of the future for India”.

“Around 54 per cent of India’s annual hydrogen consumption is utilised in the petroleum refining sector. We are ensuring the uptake of green hydrogen in refineries and City Gas Distribution (CGD) through both public sector entities and private sector,” he said.

PSUs under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG) have targeted to produce more than 1 MT of green hydrogen by 2030. They are in the process of floating tenders for procurement of the green hydrogen on Build-Own-Operate (BOO) basis (around 42 kilo tonnes per annum), to be increased to 165 KTPA.

“Our goal of producing 5 MT green hydrogen by 2030 is a critical step in decarbonizing our economy. This will require an investment of $100 billion and the development of 125 GW of new RE capacity,” Puri said.

The mission will not only reduce 15 MT CO2 emissions annually but will also generate substantial savings in imports, he added.

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