Green Hydrogen Market In India Likely To Reach $340 Billion By 2050: NITI Aayog Report

A new report released on Wednesday (29 June( by NITI Aayog highlights that green hydrogen can substantially spur industrial decarbonisation and economic growth for India in the coming decades.

The report was launched by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Suman Bery, and Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog.

Titled 'Harnessing Green Hydrogen: Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India', the report provides a pathway to accelerate the emergence of a green hydrogen economy, which is critical for India to achieve its net-zero ambitions by 2070.

The report, co-authored by NITI Aayog and RMI, underscores that green hydrogen, produced by renewable energy through electrolysis of water, will be crucial for achieving decarbonisation of harder-to-abate sectors such as, fertilisers, refining, methanol, maritime shipping, iron and steel, and transport.

It further states that with emerging global momentum on hydrogen, Indiacan situate thisdecarbonisation opportunity not just within the context of a low-carbon economy but also as an enabler of energy security and economic development for the nation.

While hydrogen can be produced from multiple sources, India’s distinct advantage in low-cost renewable electricity means that green hydrogen will emerge as the most cost-effective form.

The report concludes that hydrogen demand in India could grow more than fourfold by 2050, representing almost 10 per cent of global demand.

Given that the majority of this demand could be met with green hydrogen in the long term, the cumulative value of the green hydrogen market in India could reach $8 billion by 2030 and $340 billion by 2050.

The report describes pathways that can capture the benefits of green hydrogen

• Near-term policy measurescan bring down the current costs of green hydrogen to make it competitive with the existinggrey hydrogen (hydrogen produced by natural gas) prices. Medium-term price targets should be set to guide the industry towards making green hydrogen the most competitive form of hydrogen.

• Government can encourage near term market development by identifying industrial clusters and enacting associated viability gap funding, mandatesand targets.

• Opportunities around research and development and manufacturing of components like electrolysers need to be identified and appropriately encouraged with adequate financial mechanisms such as production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes to enable 25 GW ofmanufacturing capacity of electrolysers by 2028.

• A globally competitive green hydrogen industry can lead to exports in green hydrogen and hydrogen-embedded low-carbon products like green ammonia and green steel that can unlock 95 GW of electrolysis capacity in the nation by 2030.