In a move to replace ‘gray hydrogen’, which emits carbon, India is now planning to switch over to environment-friendly ‘green hydrogen’—clean and green fuel for its fertilizer and refining sectors.

During a telephonic talk with US Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry, Union Minister for Power R K Singh said India is proposing to mandate using ‘green hydrogen’ in fertilizer and in refining.

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“This is part of the Government’s commitment towards replacing grey hydrogen with green hydrogen,” the Minister told U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC), John Kerry, during a telephonic conversation over India’s contribution towards green and clean energy here last evening.

Presently these industries are using Grey Hydrogen (hydrogen produced in this process emits carbon) and were not using ‘green Hydrogen’, which is much expensive than grey and blue Hydrogen but more environment friendly.

While grey Hydrogen is produced from natural gases emitting carbon in the atmosphere, green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis which is a process of separating water into hydrogen and oxygen—and is considered to be environmentally friendly.

India had launched its National Hydrogen Energy Mission to enable cost-competitive green hydrogen production, R K Singh told Kerry. India would be conducting competitive bids for green hydrogen in the next 3-4 months to pave the road for viable usage of hydrogen as a fuel.

Besides, India is also looking at bids for 4000 MW of electrolysers capacity. The other countries need to come up with more electrolyser plants to bring down the costs. Indian Power Minister also asked the US leader to join hands in setting up an alternate supply chain for lithium in order to secure inputs material for Battery Energy Storage.

He said India and the US should work together in the areas of innovations for power and technology, pointing out the requirement of bringing down the cost of storage of renewable power. India is in the process of inviting bids for 4000 Megawatt-hours of battery storage, the Minister said.

John Kerry acknowledged India’s efforts in renewable energy where it has already reached 146 GW Renewables with 63 GW under construction and 25 GW underbids.