The Union government is expecting to receive comments from stakeholders by next week on the draft standards for green hydrogen. Bhupinder Singh Bhalla, the secretary at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, told CNBC-TV18 that the government is actively working on the Green Hydrogen Mission and plans to meet all stakeholders in the domain to finalise the standards. A draft of incentive schemes has already been prepared for the green fuel and is to be discussed with stakeholders before finalisation.

Earlier this month, Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh, had told CNBC-TV18 that the Union Budget's focus on green hydrogen was a welcome move.

The Minister said India is emerging as a leader in green hydrogen with industries already in the process of setting up 6 billion tonne of capacity and Indian companies having negotiated tie-ups for green hydrogen export orders to Germany and Japan.

Singh had explained that battery storage as well as pump hydro systems were also being added to enable round-the-clock supply of renewable energy. Apart from greening power supply with solar, hydro and wind energy; the government has also called for use of green hydrogen in other sectors too where fossil fuels are used as feed stock, such as the steel sector where green hydrogen can be used as a reducing agent to replace coking coal.

While stressing on the need for green hydrogen's significance for long distance mobility to avoid use of large and unwieldy batteries, the minister had said that use of green hydrogen and green ammonia can not only lead to energy autonomy but also export from India.

Speaking on small hydel power projects below 25 MW capacity, Bhalla said that though there's no scheme in place for such projects since 2017, the ministry is in process of formulating a new scheme and will send it to the Centre for approval.

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First Published:Feb 21, 2023 4:29 PM IST