NITI Aayog and IH2A propose 7 steps to commercialise Green Hydrogen at scale in India

Industry body India Hydrogen Alliance (IH2A) has proposed the creation of a H2Bharat Public-Private Taskforce for a GW-scale national hydrogen hub development plan to NITI Aayog and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), with the aim of identifying at least five large GW-scale Green hydrogen hubs for development in India, within next 18-months.

The proposal was the result of the second workshop conducted by NITI Aayog and IH2A, to build the hydrogen economy in India, and part of a set of seven points that were deliberated during the workshop. The workshop was attended by representatives from the European Investment Bank (EIB), World Bank, OECD, GIZ, CDC and FMO; Government of India, Government of Kerala and industry players from across the hydrogen value chain.

The seven recommended steps from the NITI Aayog-IH2A workshop are:

1. India should replicate the global best-practice of GW-scale Green H2 hubs with co-located Green H2 production and consumption, across different use cases, in a single regional cluster or hub, to commercialise Green hydrogen.
2. The first Green H2 hubs should be designated national projects or ‘Special Projects of National Importance’ and be supported with special incentives and public funding.
3. Formation of public-private consortiums for development of national green hydrogen hubs and project clusters is very important, to pool public and private resources and for de-risking early project development.
4. Sovereign green bonds and global climate finance commitments can provide the necessary funding for GW-scale Green Hydrogen hubs in India. Multilateral and government agencies can play a catalysing role in early market development by part funding design and pre-feasibility studies for the national hubs.
5. India needs a pipeline of national hydrogen hubs that can be evaluated before public and low-cost funding can be extended to them. Funding agencies are keen to see the synergies across the green hydrogen value-chain in project plans rather than standalone green hydrogen projects.
6. Pre-feasibility studies for the first set of GW-scale green hydrogen hubs should start immediately with at least five national green hydrogen hubs identified in the next 18 months.
7. Formation of a public private H2Bharat commercialisation taskforce, with a focus on green H2 hub or cluster development, with the target to conduct pre-feasibility studies for the first five GW green H2 clusters/hubs in India in the next 12 months.

Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive, NITI Aayog, said, “Our aim is to bring down the cost of green hydrogen to $2.5/kg by 2025 and $1/kg by 2030. This is possible only by increasing size and scale of hydrogen manufacturing. With rapidly falling renewable energy costs, India’s green hydrogen production cost is expected to be amongst the lowest in the world. The H2Bharat Taskforce is an interesting proposal to kick-start green hydrogen project development at large GW-scale.”

Jill Evanko, Chief Executive and President, Chart Industries, and founding member, IH2A, added, “The H2Bharat Taskforce will identify and shortlist five GW-scale national green hydrogen hubs for development in the next 12 months. It would bring together all relevant stakeholders from the government, funding agencies and the industry.”

IH2A estimates that India will need investments of about USD 25 bn, from public and private sectors, to create a domestic green hydrogen supply chain with national installed electrolyser capacity of 25 GW producing 5 MT of Green Hydrogen by 2030. It has earlier stated that coordinated public-private actions will be required to develop the first generation of large-scale commercial hydrogen projects.