Posted on 07 Jul 2023
India’s government has unveiled a draft roadmap for developing the country’s green hydrogen sector as it looks to lower its fossil fuel dependency, Kallanish reports.
The draft, released by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) on Wednesday, aims to develop cost-effective, efficient, safe and reliable methods for green hydrogen production, storage, and transportation. While hydrogen technologies are under development, most mature technologies such as electrolysers and fuel cells are currently not cost-competitive with alternative options, the draft explains. Therefore, there is significant room for improvement, it adds.
As India looks to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, hydrogen will play a key role as a means to store excess renewable energy. During lean periods, it is estimated that around 5,000 gigawatt-hours of solar or wind energy might be needed to be stored per day, the draft notes.
For green hydrogen storage, the South Asian country is planning to demonstrate distributed aboveground storage at costs under INR 30,000/kg ($365/kg) by 2030. Its targets also include demonstrating large-scale underground storage at costs lower than INR 3000/kg.
Regarding green hydrogen production, the government aims for a “steep reduction” in electrolyser capital and operational expenditure by the end of this decade. It will also focus on developing large-scale electrolyser systems, while simultaneously improving the manufacture of water and steam electrolysers.
Under India’s national green hydrogen mission, projects are underway to establish 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen production capacity by 2030, says Raj Kumar Singh, India’s power and renewable energy minister.
“We are able to do this because we have built up a huge robust ecosystem for renewables, we have now industries which are world leaders in solar and wind energy ecosystems,” he adds. The minister was speaking at this week’s International Conference on Green Hydrogen in New Delhi.
The draft is currently open for public and stakeholder comments.
Source:Kallanish
