India must emerge as green hydrogen refuelling hub for shipping industry: RK Singh

India recently notified its 'Green Hydrogen Standard' which limits carbon dioxide missions to less than or equal to 2 kg per kg of hydrogen.

The shipping sector will go green in the next 10 years and India will emerge as a key green hydrogen refuelling hub for ships, Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh said on September 5, while underlining the need to shift to green fuel as the country's economy grows.

"Globally, shipping will go green within 10 years. So, we have to emerge as a refuelling destination for all green ships, since we can provide them green hydrogen or green ammonia or whatever fuel they want at the lowest cost," Singh said in his address at a day-long conference on 'Green hydrogen pilots in India' organised by NTPC Ltd.

"We have to prepare bunkers at shipyards and also have pilots for green shipping on our own. We are in talks with the Ministry of Shipping, to take this forward," he said.

As first reported by Moneycontrol on August 23, the Union minister also said the government is going to come out with a pilot for green hydrogen or green ammonia for energy storage to ensure round-the-clock renewable power.

"There are companies that have developed turbines which can use hydrogen or ammonia for making electricity. These pilots are actually initial bids, and I believe we can replicate them on a larger scale for round-the-clock renewable energy. This will free us at one stroke from the problem of going for large scale imports of lithium batteries till we have our own manufacturing capacity," Singh said.

"This will be entirely homegrown and we can start off from the word go. This is absolutely necessary, since we have our demand growing and we need capacities at a rapid pace. Given the pace at which we are growing, this is the solution: round-the-clock renewable energy using green hydrogen or green ammonia as storage," he said.

Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Bhupinder S. Bhalla said the research and development (R&D) roadmap for the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) is almost finalised and will be released shortly.

"The R&D roadmap for NGHM will detail the various research areas required for development of green hydrogen ecosystem. We have also worked on necessary regulations, codes and standards. We have sent the first set of recommendations to agencies such as BIS, PESO and OISD, to adopt the relevant standards," Bhalla said.

India recently notified its 'Green Hydrogen Standard' which limits carbon dioxide missions to less than or equal to 2 kg. per kg of hydrogen.