The 3-day International Conference on Green Hydrogen (ICGH-2023) between July 5-7 to establish a Green Hydrogen ecosystem and foster a systemic approach for meeting the global goals for decarbonization through Green Hydrogen. Recent advances and emerging technologies in the entire green hydrogen value chain will be discussed and the conference will enable the sector stakeholders to explore the evolving green hydrogen landscape and innovation-driven solutions.
The conference is being organised by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, in partnership with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and Office of Principal Scientific Advisor.
Apart from domain-specific research interactions on hydrogen production, storage, distribution and downstream applications, the conference will also discuss green financing, human resource upskilling and startup initiatives in this area. International best practices in the sector will also be shared.
Addressing a curtain raiser press conference on the international conference, the Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Bhupinder Singh Bhalla said that outreach and industry partnership are integral parts of the National Green Hydrogen Mission, “Through this process, we are creating a platform where experts can talk about various steps of the value chain, so that we can learn from others; this would comprise not only production, but also marketing and collaborations. Our focus is on the entire value chain which is important for the success of the National Green Hydrogen Mission.”
Green Hydrogen opportunity: Evolving dynamics
The Secretary added that the conference is the first major event on green hydrogen. He said that the green hydrogen ecosystem is important in order to attain the basic production target of 5 MMT of green hydrogen per annum by the year 2030 as decided by the National Green Hydrogen Mission.
Responding to a media questions, Bhalla said that at last count, about 48 projects on green hydrogen/green ammonia have been publicly announced in India. “A lot of them are talking about green ammonia, which totals to production of around 3.5 million metric tonnes per annum of green hydrogen. There is a lot of traction from the industry, as far as green hydrogen opportunity is concerned.”
Bhalla expressed the hope that the conference helps to also evolve some global standards for green hydrogen. He added that there is no standard definition for green hydrogen, “It is an evolving field, so every country is learning, so India is going to come up with a definition based on what we believe should be green hydrogen and eventually, we should be having a global standard on the definition of green hydrogen. This should have clear starting and ending points, so that we can effectively evaluate our energy transition and adoption of green hydrogen.”
The conference will also have demos, prototypes by PSUs, private companies and startups, as well as B2B and B2G meetings. Speaking on demand creation, the Secretary said that the government is working with respective Ministries to promote green hydrogen. “The Ministry is also working on provision of incentives for electrolyzer manufacturing and for production of green hydrogen. As regards production of green hydrogen, incentives will be awarded based on setting up of green hydrogen plants; in a second model, incentives will be provided for consumption, based on a Demand Aggregation Model.”
The total incentives being offered under the Mission is more than Rs. 17,000 crores until 2030, which will be rolled out in tranches, so that the government will learn from the first tranche and evolve the second one.
On the question of funding for green hydrogen, the Secretary recalled that there is a need for Rs 8 lakh crores of investment under National Green Hydrogen Mission and said that the government is talking with banking and financial system, private sector and other stakeholders for financing of green hydrogen. He said that the government would be handholding industry in order to attract funding for the sector.
Green Hydrogen Hubs on the anvil
The Secretary said that the government is working with states on development of green hydrogen hubs. Explaining the concept, the Secretary said: “A Green Hydrogen Hub is an area where production and consumption occur in close proximity. If a particular green hydrogen production capacity is purely export-oriented, they would be largely near the ports and this is a call which the private sector is going to take. We are working with the Ministry of Shipping in order to explore setting up of green hydrogen hubs at major ports.”