New Delhi: Green Hydrogen could become commercially viable in India by 2030, boosting India’s efforts to wean its industries away from highly polluting grey hydrogen, a study by Nuvama and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) revealed.
Currently, green hydrogen costs $3.5-4/kg in India, and that could go down to $1.6/kg by 2030, cheaper than the 2.2/kg price for grey hydrogen. Though the current production is mostly catered to the demand for European countries, recent technological improvements and indigenisation could help India reduce its manufacturing costs, the study added.
The demand for green hydrogen is set to increase to around 12 million tonnes by 2030, mostly on the back of increasing demand from new technologies used in shipping, power generation, steel and long haul transport, besides the dominant demand from the fertilizer, petrochemical and refining industries.
The Government has been encouraging the production of green hydrogen through the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM), launched in January 2023. To date, it has already allocated almost ₹17,000 crore in incentives for electrolyser manufacturing, the most technically challenging component for manufacturing green hydrogen.
Union Minister for New & Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi called for proposals to set up biomass-based green energy plants at the International Conference for Green Hydrogen in New Delhi last month.
The government aims to boost hydrogen production primarily to reduce its fossil fuel imports and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, especially since green hydrogen could help the government save ₹1 lakh crore each year.
