Industry-led coalition India Hydrogen Alliance (IH2A) has sought government financial support of $360 million for its proposed 25/25 National Green Hydrogen Development Plan to create 25 first-generation national green hydrogen (H2) projects and national hydrogen hubs in the country by 2025.

The proposed framework seeks the creation of a National Hydrogen Development Corporation and a public-private advisory task force to ramp up the deployment of hydrogen projects in India.

The industry body recently submitted the proposal for the hydrogen development projects to NITI Aayog and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). The proposal focuses on producing scalable hydrogen projects and hubs that can grow to gigawatt-scale projects in three years.

The financial support of $360 million will be utilized for capital expenditure (CAPEX) on electrolyzers and balance-of-plant (BoP) equipment. The financing includes green H2 price support of $2/kg in first-generation green hydrogen projects.

IH2A suggests the formation of a Green Hydrogen Project Development Consortia by industry champions, in partnership with state governments, and preparing ‘State Green Hydrogen Policies’ to create the Green Hydrogen Hubs.

The proposal suggests deploying 25 first-generation scalable H2 projects, aggregating to 150 MW installed electrolyzer capacity by 2025. It proposes installing twelve decarbonization projects in the chemicals, refinery, and steel industries. Three heavy-duty transport projects, three H2-blending in city gas distribution projects, and several distributed waste-to-H2 municipal projects are also recommended.

The plan selected Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh to deploy the five national green H2 projects, clustering the 25 green H2 projects to produce and use multi-sectoral demand for green hydrogen, voiding the creation of expensive new infrastructure.

A 40 MW electrolyzer plant with a green H2 production capacity of 8,000 tons catering to chemical and fertilizer units would be installed at the green H2 project based in Ankleshwar-Vadodara, Gujarat, as the National Green Chemicals and Ammonia Fertilizer Hub. The plant will help the project mitigate 8 metric million tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide within a decade.

A 30 MW electrolyzer plant with a production capacity of 5,000 tons will help the proposed green H2 project at Bellary-Nellore (Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh) as National Green Steel and Chemicals Corridor.

Two 30 MW electrolyzer plants, each producing 5,000 tons of green H2, would be installed in the proposed projects of Pune-Mumbai (Maharashtra) as National Green Steel and Transport Hub and Kochi (Kerala) as National Green Refinery and Transport Hub, respectively. Both H2 projects would mitigate 5 MMT of CO2 annually.

Jill Evanko, Chief Executive and founding member of IH2A, said, “This is a blueprint of how the green H2 economy can be developed over the next three years in India. The estimated $360 million public finance support in project development will help the country quickly commercialize green hydrogen projects at scale in the region. Government support for hydrogen project development contributes to further investment from global green climate investors and the private sector.”

In line with the National Hydrogen Mission launched last year, the Ministry of Power announced a ‘Green Hydrogen Policy’ to help India meet the production target of 5 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030 and the related development of renewable energy capacity.

India has witnessed several investments in hydrogen production and plants recently. In April, the country’s only pure green H2 pilot plant was commissioned by Oil India in Jorhat, Assam. The plant has an installed capacity of 10 kg per day and is expected to produce 30 kg daily in the coming years.