The Himachal Pradesh government on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding with NHPC for execution of a green hydrogen mobility station in Chamba on pilot project basis.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur between the District Administration Chamba and NHPC Ltd.

After the signing of MoU, theChief Minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that India will go Carbon neutral by 2070 and by 2030 India will generate 500 GW from non-fossil fuel sources which will be 50 per cent of total installed capacity. This initiative of the state government with cooperation of NHPC will be a big milestone in this regard.

The Green Hydrogen project at Chamba has been taken up by NHPC as an initiative and an MOU is being signed between HP Government and NHPC Ltd for execution of a pilot hydrogen project in the area of mobility, the CM said.

Thakur stated that a grid connected Ground Mounted Solar PV plant of 300 KW in the area of approximately 200 acre would be installed and power of the same would be used in the electrolyser to produce hydrogen.

About 20 kg Hydrogen per day would be generated through the electrolysis process and would be considered as green hydrogen and would be stored in pressurizing form. Water nine to 12 liters would be utilized to produce one kilogram of hydrogen fuel.

NHPC Group General Manager S K Sandhu said that this was an initiative of Chairman A K Singh and under this initiative the produced hydrogen would be stored in the fuel tank having capacity 20kg of a mobility such as bus, car etc and from fuel tank this hydrogen would go to the hydrogen fuel cells installed in the bus as a part of main engine.

These fuel cells would be capable to generate electric power and this power would be used to run engine of the bus up to 8 hrs continuously or 200 km in the local area of Chamba. NHPC would also provide one 32 +1 seater bus under this pilot project which would improve the transportation of areas with zero emission of carbon.

HP Vidhan Sabha Speaker Vipin Singh Parmar, MP Kishan Kapoor, Chief Whip Vikram Jaryal, MLA Jiya Lal Kapoor and Pawan Nayar, Chief Secretary Ram Subhag Singh were present on the occasion among others.