Petroleum Minister Launches Trial Run Of HCNG Powered Buses In Delhi, Says Providing Clean Energy Govt's Top Most Priority

Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday (20 October) inaugurated IndianOil's compact reformer plant and launched the much-awaited trial run of Delhi's buses on Hydrogen-blended CNG (HCNG) at the Rajghat Bus Depot-I of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).

Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said that providing clean and reliable energy supplies to 130 crore plus Indians is the top most priority of the government, a Ministry of Petroleum statement said.

He said that India will emerge as a winner in developing the solutions that the world would admire for the decades ahead. The minister mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to usher in clean energy future that has minimal impact on the environment.

Complimenting the initiatives of IndianOil, Pradhan said, "I am happy to note that the scientists of IndianOil R&D have risen to the occasion and have developed an innovative compact reforming technology for production of Hydrogen-mixed CNG."

Elaborating on the importance of Hydrogen in facilitating India's energy transformation, Pradhan said, "Hydrogen is the ultimate fuel, which, while giving energy, produces clean water in the emissions. Apart from this, it has many other virtues as the capacity to get the rural sector involved with the energy sector through biomass".

The minister said that this pilot project will be unique and will help the county and the world as a whole.

In India's quest to promote Hydrogen as a clean fuel for the mobility sector, Hydrogen-blended HCNG is emerging as an excellent interim technology for achieving emissions reduction and import substitution. Refueling of H-CNG blends in vehicles can be performed with minimum modifications in the infrastructure that is currently under use for dispensing CNG, the statement said.