Green Hydrogen Is Critical to India’s Economic Development:NITI Aayog

In News

Recently ,NITI Aayog released a report titled Harnessing Green Hydrogen: Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India .

The report, co-authored by NITI Aayog and RMI.

RMI

RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5° C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero carbon future for all.

Major Highlights

It provides a pathway to accelerate the emergence of a green hydrogen economy, which is critical for India to achieve its net-zero ambitions by 2070.
It highlights that green hydrogen can substantially spur industrial decarbonisation and economic growth for India in the coming decades.
- It can potentially provide a replacement of fossil fuels in industrial processes.
Its underscores that green hydrogen will be crucial for achieving decarbonisation of harder-to-abate sectors such as fertilisers, refining, methanol, maritime shipping, iron & steel and transport.
The report concludes that hydrogen demand in India could grow more than fourfold by 2050, representing almost 10% of global demand.
- Given that the majority of this demand could be met with green hydrogen in the long term, the cumulative value of the green hydrogen market in India could reach US $8 billion by 2030.

Suggestions /Pathways

The report describes pathways that can capture the benefits of green hydrogen
- Near-term policy measures can bring down the current costs of green hydrogen to make it competitive with the existing grey hydrogen (hydrogen produced by natural gas) prices.
- Medium-term price targets should be set to guide the industry towards making green hydrogen the most competitive form of hydrogen.
- Governments can encourage near term market development by identifying industrial clusters and enacting associated viability gap funding, mandates and targets.
- Opportunities around research and development and manufacturing of components like electrolysers need to be identified and appropriately encouraged with adequate financial mechanisms such as production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes to enable 25 GW of manufacturing capacity of electrolysers by 2028.
- A globally competitive green hydrogen industry can lead to exports in green hydrogen and hydrogen-embedded low-carbon products like green ammonia and green steel that can unlock 95 GW of electrolysis capacity in the nation by 2030.

Green Hydrogen

It is produced through electrolysis using renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind or hydel power.
Green hydrogen gas is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using an electrolyzer that may be powered by electricity generated from renewable energy sources.
The rapidly declining cost of renewable energy is one reason for the growing interest in green hydrogen.
Green Hydrogen is one of the most popular and demanding fields in the current times and considered to be the next carrier of energy.
India’s Green Hydrogen production :India has just begun to generate green hydrogen with the objective of raising non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030. On April 20, India’s first 99.99% pure green hydrogen pilot plant was set up in eastern Assam’s Duliajan.

Why is India pursuing green hydrogen?

Under the Paris Agreement of 2015, India is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 33-35% from the 2005 levels.
- It is a legally binding international treaty on climate change with the goal of limiting global warming to below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels.
At the 2021 Conference of Parties in Glasgow, India reiterated its commitment to move from a fossil and import-dependent economy to a net-zero economy by 2070.
India’s average annual energy import bill is more than $100 billion.
The increased consumption of fossil fuel has made the country a high carbon dioxide (CO2) emitter, accounting for nearly 7% of the global CO2 burden.
In order to become energy independent by 2047, the government stressed the need to introduce green hydrogen as an alternative fuel that can make India the global hub and a major exporter of hydrogen.
It will benefit India’s transportation sector (which contributes 1/3 of India’s greenhouse-gas emissions), iron and steel and chemical sectors.
Hydrogen energy can provide impetus to India’s aim to decarbonise by 2050 and attain 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022.
The energy in 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of hydrogen gas contains about the same as the energy in 1 gallon (6.2 pounds, 2.8 kilograms) of gasoline.

Other types of Hydrogen:

Image Courtesy: WEF

Source:PIB

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