Will India's green hydrogen projects fuel its future needs?

Hyderabad-based Greenko group and Belgium-based John Cockeril recently announced that they would build a hydrogen electrolyser gigafactory targeting 2-gigawatt in India.
 
This would be the largest such facility outside of China. This partnership will reportedly entail an investment of about Rs 4,000 crore.
 
Analysts told Business Standard that Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro and Adani, together, have earmarked investments of close to Rs 6 trillion in green hydrogen projects.

Clearly, green hydrogen is powering the ambitions of India Inc. And, this push by major corporate names comes as the government, which launched a green hydrogen policy in February, bets big on the sector.

On 15th August last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the National Hydrogen Mission as a step towards environmental security and make India a global hub for the production and export of green hydrogen.  

However, becoming a major exporter of green hydrogen will not be feasible until 2030, given our stated target, domestic requirements and planned capacities.
 
Nonetheless, India’s green hydrogen ambitions are nothing to sneeze at. India plans to manufacture 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030. This would be half of the European Union’s 2030 target of 10 million tonnes.

India’s target sounds impressive when compared to China’s relatively shorter-term plans. The country has announced a target to produce up to 2,00,000 tonnes per year of green hydrogen by 2025.
India’s Power Minister RK Singh has said that India will need at least 10 GW of electrolyser capacity. If that is indeed the target, it is substantial.

Meanwhile, according to KPMG, the EU is committed to have 40 GW of hydrogen electrolyzer capacity by 2030. Spain, Germany and France have announced their commitment to install 4 GW, 5GW and 6.5 GW of green hydrogen respectively, by 2030.

The Global Hydrogen Review 2021 by the International Energy Agency details announced targets of various governments that adopted national hydrogen strategies for hydrogen.
The data reveals, among individual countries, only Chile pips India so far, with plans to have 25 GW electrolysis target by 2030.  

Clearly, India has set stiffer targets than its European peers. But, if China goes through with its plans, then India’s capacities will pale in comparison.

China green hydrogen screenshot [Source: rechargenews.com]

In September 2021, reports emerged that China’s hydrogen industry body, which is supervised by its government, has called for installing 100 GW of green hydrogen electrolysers by 2030.

At the end of the day, however, it will all boil down to how much the green hydrogen costs.

Let’s also look at the scale of the challenge ahead. According to S&P Global Commodity Insights data cited by a financial daily, there are 26 hydrogen projects in India, with a total capacity of 255,000 tonnes per year. However, a majority of these announced projects are still in their early stages. Only around 8,000 tonnes per year of capacity is expected to be operational by 2024. The gap between intent and execution is clear. Time will reveal if that’s a mountain to climb.