How Green Hydrogen Could Reshape the Country’s Renewable Energy Future

Green hydrogen can serve as an alternative to high carbon emitting resources.

Siddharth Rastogi,

With ever-increasing concerns over climate change and global warming, the policy puzzle between achieving economic growth and ensuring environmental sustainability has intensified in recent years. For a developing economy like India, which has yet to fully ‘self-realise’, this puzzle is particularly clear. Also, endowed with policy support with a favorable geographical location with splendid sunshine and wind, the country has emerged as the fifth largest renewable energy producer in solar and wind power in terms of installed capacity globally.

As renewable energy continues to exert its influence on India’s broader energy policy landscape, new challenges are emerging that are presenting themselves. When renewable energy exceeds demand, it has the potential to create chaos on the grid. While conventional electricity from hydro, thermal and nuclear is predictable and manageable, renewable energy through wind and to some extent solar cannot be predicted well. Green power producers are facing the threat of penalties if they put excess electricity on the grid and are being forced to look at alternative uses for the excess electricity. To address such new challenges, the advent of green hydrogen, appearing as an alternative energy ecosystem around the world, cannot be ignored. At a time when India is well on its way to meet its Paris commitments to the larger cause of climate change and global warming, accelerated uptake of green hydrogen within the country could reshape India’s renewable energy future and thus lead to green development. can provide facilities.

What is Green Hydrogen?

Unlike conventional fossil fuel-based hydrogen, green hydrogen is produced through the electrolysis of water using renewable energy such as solar or wind, which is a byproduct in the atmosphere after splitting water’s two main elements, hydrogen and oxygen. As oxygen ejects. When modern electrolysis techniques like Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) are used, there is no further discharge of harmful chemicals and the technology is eco-friendly and easy to manage.

How India consumes its energy

The industrial sector has been the largest consumer of energy in the country, accounting for about 56% of the total final energy consumption, followed by residential, agricultural, commercial and public sectors at 31% and the transport sector at 10 per cent. Within the industry sector, the most energy intensive industries are iron and steel, which account for 17% of industrial energy use, followed by chemicals and petrochemicals at 4% and construction at 2 percent. Similarly for electricity, most of it is consumed by industry at 43%, domestic at 24%, agriculture at 18%, commercial at 8%, and traction and railways at 1.5%.

How green can be consumed from green hydrogen

As the industry is the largest consumer of energy with 60% coming from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, the pressing urgency of the sector to achieve decarbonisation cannot be denied. And green hydrogen can serve as an alternative to high carbon emitting resources. As such, steel which carries most of the industrial energy as well as fertiliser, which is very important to the agricultural economy employing about 40% of the workforce, are potential mass consumers of green hydrogen. In fertilizer production, ammonia produced from green hydrogen will not only replace carbon-intensive natural gas-based ammonia but can also serve as a reservoir and carrier of hydrogen which is fraught with disincentive effects for the nitrogen fertilizer industry. Similarly, methanol, which is primarily composed of methane, is a major greenhouse gas, and is used for many everyday items such as plastics, paints, auto parts and building materials – it is also made from green hydrogen. can go. Importantly, methanol is also a clean source of energy for transportation. It is important to note that some sectors, such as long-distance trucking, concrete and steel manufacturing, shipping and aviation, necessarily require fuels with high energy densities, and are therefore difficult to distinguish from fossil fuels. Green hydrogen can serve as a substitute for these fields. In fact, long-distance trucking is one of the most cost-effective ways to popularize hydrogen fuels compared to passenger vehicles, which require a lot of refueling infrastructure investment in cities. Whereas, to serve long-distance trucking, hydrogen fueling stations may only have a sparse population along major highways. With the heavy duty transportation market expected to expand in India in the coming years, it is a potential area for green hydrogen consumption. In particular, hydrogen diffuses into vehicles as regular gaseous fuels such as CNG and as a result hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) can be refilled as rapidly as gasoline vehicles, compared to 90 minutes for battery-powered electric vehicles. Requires up to 8 hours. . Green
Hydrogen, when mixed with natural gas, can also be stored in existing gas pipelines to power home appliances.

The path to green hydrogen: staying ahead of the technology curve is the key

Given the relatively nascent nature of green hydrogen (as opposed to carbon-intensive natural gas-based gray hydrogen) as a resource, currently with substantial technology acquisition and implementation cost issues, reducing the cost of green hydrogen technologies and Tools should be a top priority for policy makers. And this can only be done through increased investment and scaling up through policy support for technologies related to the production, transport, storage and use of green hydrogen. Both supply- and demand-side policies, including subsidies and tax incentives, are needed to promote greater deployment and proliferation of green hydrogen technologies on the ground. Just as the deployment and scaling up of plants and technologies for battery, solar, onshore wind and offshore wind significantly reduced their costs between 2010 and 2018 – by 84%, 87%, 47% and 32%, respectively – there is no reason why Not that a similar feat cannot be made for green hydrogen. It should be remembered that one of the first large-scale alkaline electrolyzer facilities in the world to produce hydrogen from electricity was established in 1962 at Nangal. However most experts are somewhat skeptical of the immediate feasibility of carbon capture, use and storage (CCU). Technology in India can certainly be a step towards enhancing water electrolysis technology capabilities. In addition, linking renewable power plants with electrolysers and local hydrogen storage can also be explored.

Global tailwind for green hydrogen

Globally, investment in green hydrogen production is set to reach $1 billion a year by 2023. Due to rapidly increasing investment, the prices of electrolysers have fallen by 50% over the past five years. In another estimate by IHS Markit, over the past five-six years, the production cost of green hydrogen has declined by 40% and is expected to fall by another 40% by 2025. India needs to capitalize on these global trends.

Therefore, with an increasing share of renewable energy, relatively expensive natural gas, the rise of one of the lowest renewable electricity tariff regimes in the world, and a host of an extensive gas pipeline network, the country is already on an ambitious green hydrogen push. Well prepared for Agenda A coherent roadmap for the future along with an appropriate policy stimulus with an eye on integration with the emerging global value chain is the need of the hour. The National Hydrogen Mission announced by the Government of India this year indicates that there is trust and confidence in this technology at the highest levels of government.

About MVS Engineering and NEL Hydrogen

MVS Engineering is India’s leading manufacturer of industrial gas systems for onsite production of gases such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Established in 1977, MVS believes in global partnership with technology leaders to offer best in class technology along with Indian engineering to offer cost effective products to our clients. In partnership with Proton Onsite (USA), which is now a part of NEL Hydrogen, Norway, MVS Engineering India has supplied over 70 hydrogen electrolyzers for various industrial purposes across our country. NEL Hydrogen is the world’s largest electrolyzer manufacturer and in addition to hydrogen production systems, they also have hydrogen fueling systems in their product portfolio. MVS along with NEL has advised several leading Indian corporations and think tanks to adopt green hydrogen and is a key player in India’s hydrogen mission.

(The author is the Executive Director of MVS Engineering. The views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online.)