Govt aims to make India competitive in hydrogen production: R K Singh

The government will take all the measures to make India competitive in producing green hydrogen, Union Minister R K Singh said.

The minister for power, new and renewable energy made the remarks during a meeting with the green hydrogen developers on October 19, an official statement said on Friday.

"With our single unified grid and large renewable capacity, India can produce the cheapest green hydrogen in the world. We will do everything in our power to make India competitive in producing green hydrogen and to achieve the targets set out in the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM)," the minister was quoted as saying in the MNRE statement.

The meeting aimed to understand the issues faced by the developers and how the government can help overcome these issues like SEZ policies, regulatory provisions for enabling dual connectivity, certain contractual conditions, and demand charges being levied by states among others.

A presentation at the meeting showed that for producing 1 million metric tonnes of hydrogen, 25 GW renewable energy is required while for producing 1 million metric tonnes of green ammonia, 5 GW renewable power is needed.

"The industry representatives were requested to share the locations of their upcoming green Hydrogen/Ammonia plants and the corresponding withdrawal capacity required so that the required transmission infrastructure can be planned accordingly," the statement said.

The minister assured the industry the government will take all possible steps for the resolution of their issues at the earliest.

The Union Cabinet on January 4 approved the mission with an outlay of Rs 19,744 crore to make India a global hub for the manufacturing of this clean source of energy, and development of a production capacity of at least 5 MMT (Million Metric Tonnes) per annum with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 GW in the country by 2030.