National Hydrogen Mission (NHM)

On the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, the Prime Minister of India announced the commencement of the National Hydrogen Mission (NHM), with the goal of reducing carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy sources.

The National Hydrogen Mission aims to reduce carbon emissions and enhance renewable energy use while aligning India’s efforts with worldwide best practises in technology, policy, and legislation.

What is the National Hydrogen Mission, and what does it entail?

The National Hydrogen Mission’s goal is to increase Green Hydrogen production and use while aligning India’s efforts with worldwide best practises in technology, policy, and regulation.

According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), the NHM has selected pilot projects, infrastructure, and supply chain, research and development, legislation, and public outreach as broad areas For investment, a budget of Rs 800 crores is planned over the following three years.

It intends to use the country’s geography as well as low solar and wind tariffs to manufacture low-cost green hydrogen and ammonia for export to Japan, South Korea, and Europe.

Hydrogen energy in India

Hydrocarbons currently account for the majority of global energy consumption, while hydrogen is still in its early stages of adoption in India’s energy industry.

Hydrogen production, storage, usage, power generation, and transportation applications are all being researched by government and non-government funding bodies. The National Hydrogen Energy Board was established in 2003, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy published the National Hydrogen Energy Road Map in 2006, recognising transportation and power generation as two of the most important green energy endeavours.

India is taking part in the Mission Innovation Challenge for Clean Hydrogen, It intends to hasten the development of a global hydrogen market by identifying and resolving significant technological barriers to gigawatt-scale hydrogen production, delivery, storage, and consumption.

In India, research and development activities are focused on improving the efficiency of water-splitting reactions and creating new materials, catalysts, and electrodes to accelerate the process.

More than 100 research groups are now focusing on fuel cell technologies. In India, there are several foreign and Indian enterprises working in hydrogen production, storage, and distribution.

Key Challenges  

• India’s current hydrogen demand is at 6.7 million tonnes (MT), with the need expected to quadruple by 2030. The majority of it is used as process fuel in oil refineries, fertiliser plants, and steel mills to generate finished goods. It’s currently grey hydrogen, which comes from fossil fuels like natural gas or naphtha.

• The cost of renewable electricity has dropped dramatically as a result of expanded renewable power capacity deployment, making green hydrogen more practical, but it is still too expensive to compete with grey hydrogen. The policy’s incentives will help cut the cost of green hydrogen generation, but the fundamental difficulty will be to make it as economical as grey hydrogen, which is now four to six times cheaper.

• The elimination of central open access charges would result in lower production costs; however, state-level open access charges may negate the intended incentives; consequently, joint efforts are needed to eliminate this variance in charges and produce a positive impact of policy incentives.

Way Forward

• Following up on this first round of policy announcements, the government intends to implement a Green Hydrogen Consumption Obligation in petroleum refining and fertiliser manufacture, along the lines of the renewable purchase obligation. Green hydrogen and ammonia will be required to meet a particular percentage of criteria in a phased way. Refineries and fertiliser plants would be compelled to use 10% green hydrogen at first, with the percentage gradually increasing to 20% to 25% in three to four years. The mandate will encourage the implementation of green hydrogen production until the cost of grey hydrogen reaches parity.

• The cost of production can be reduced even more if electrolysers are made in India; the country is aiming for 15 gigawatts of electrolyser capacity and is proposing production-linked incentives to encourage local manufacturing.

• Currently, alkaline water electrolysis is employed, which uses more electricity to make hydrogen, but using polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis would reduce the electricity requirement, lowering the cost of hydrogen production even more.

An Important Step Forward

• The policy is a critical first step in creating a hydrogen economy. It has attempted to solve some of the industry’s most pressing concerns, such as open access, grid financing, and a single-window approval process.

• By increasing solar installations and lowering renewable energy generating prices, the project hopes to exploit the country’s landmass to generate low-cost green hydrogen / ammonia for export. India’s green hydrogen could find a market in Germany and Japan.

• To facilitate the transition from grey to green hydrogen and to meet rising hydrogen demand, India will need to continue to invest in innovation, R&D initiatives, and demonstration projects to help commercialise new technologies and reduce the cost of green hydrogen production.

Conclusion

Hydrogen may be made from a variety of home resources with almost no greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen is created and used to generate electricity in a fuel cell, leaving only water vapour and warm air behind. It has the potential to expand in the stationary and transportation energy sectors.