Eye technology and standards, India to organise international green hydrogen conference in July

Incentives for green hydrogen production will be rolled out in two buckets.

In first, the Union government will be organising an "International Conference on Green Hydrogen" in Delhi from July 5-7. The event will be the first such conference of this scale on green hydrogen in the country, BS Bhalla, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) said on June 28.

For five million metric tonnes of annual green hydrogen production target, India would need an electrolyser capacity of 60-100 gigawatts (GW), as per MNRE estimates. “Electrolyser production capacity in the world is very limited, this capacity has to come up in India. And for this, it is important that we learn and adopt the appropriate technology for electrolyser manufacturing as well as for various individual components of the manufacturing process," said Bhalla.

"Through this conference, 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," he said.

After being approved by the Union Cabinet on January 4, the government released a blueprint for its ambitious National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) on January 13, with a total initial outlay of Rs 19,744 crore, of which Rs 17,490 crore has been kept for the production-linked incentives (PLIs) for producing green hydrogen and manufacturing electrolysers.

The three-day international conference will have at least 25 sessions aimed at establishing a green hydrogen ecosystem, with an expected participation of more than 1,500 delegates from India and abroad. Delegates will also get to hear country-specific perspectives on green hydrogen by representatives from the United States of America, Australia, Africa, Europe, other than India.

The conference will also have demos, prototypes by PSUs, private companies and startups, as well as B2B and B2G meetings, the MNRE said in a statement.

Bhalla said Indian standards and definitions of green hydrogen will soon be released. "A Working Group on Standards for Green Hydrogen Manufacturing has already submitted a report comprising around 100 recommendations to the Bureau of Indian Standards and other standards-related organisations," he said.

The secretary added that the government will also come up with guidelines for the creation of a Green Hydrogen Hub, which 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 green hydrogen hubs at major ports. Hubs will be selected for infrastructure support from the government based on parameters identified under the policy to be rolled out, but hubs in addition to what the government supports can also come up, based on initiatives by the industry," Bhalla said.