Govt to bring norms for making India global hub for hydrogen manufacturing

Union New and Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh on Thursday said his ministry will come out with detailed guidelines and standards for making India a global hub for hydrogen manufacturing.

The comment comes a day after the Union Cabinet approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission with an outlay of Rs 19,744 crore.

"We will come out with a detailed order after clearance by the Cabinet," Singh said during a media interaction.

The Mission is expected to attract Rs 8 lakh crore of investment to produce 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum in the next five years.

The incentives provided under the Mission are aimed at bringing down the cost of green hydrogen.

"We have decided that electrolysers can be made in India. So, we have worked out the PLI (production linked incentive) scheme for their domestic manufacturing that will cover manufacture of 15 gigawatts (GW) capacity. But we expect the capacity to be established to be almost in the region of 60 GW (by 2030)," he added.

Singh pointed out that this (60 GW) will be the world's largest electrolyser manufacturing capacity.

"We will announce a date up till which domestic industry will be allowed to import electrolysers at lower import duties, let's say by 2025-26. By 2025-26, we expect the domestic manufacturing capacity to come up. Thereafter, heavy import duties will kick-in, and we don't expect anybody to import electrolysers," the minister stated.

The PLI scheme on green hydrogen manufacturing will be available for the first few years till the domestic industry becomes competitive, Singh said.

Some countries such as Germany have come out with bids for importing green hydrogen.

"I have asked the domestic industry to analyse the bids and figure out whether they can also participate in the bidding," he added.

The minister was of the view that battery is not suited for long-range vehicles, which should be powered by green hydrogen.

Singh also highlighted the government's goal of making sectors such as steel, shipping, refining, cement, fertiliser, mobility (long-haul vehicles) and refining (petroleum) based on green hydrogen and ammonia.

The minister also referred to hydrogen purchase obligation (HPO) under which certain industries like refining and fertiliser were to use certain proportion of green hydrogen out of their overall consumption of fossil fuel-based 'grey' hydrogen.

The government has also envisaged to reduce the price of green hydrogen, which is around Rs 300 per kg at present.

Industries across the globe are contemplating to reduce the price of green hydrogen to USD 1 per kg (about Rs 82).

Carbon-free hydrogen, which can be used as fuel in automobiles and as an energy source in industries such as oil refineries and steel plants, is produced by splitting water. When electricity generated from renewable sources such as the sun is used to split water through electrolysis, green hydrogen is produced. Oxygen is a by-product of such a process.