Earlier this month, NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant announced that India was aiming to bring down the cost of producing green hydrogen—an environmentally-friendly produced fuel—to USD 1 per kilogram by 2030. While this is an ambitious target, India has a distinct advantage in low-cost renewable energy generation, potentially making it one of the most competitive producers of green hydrogen in the world. The global demand for hydrogen in 2020 was around 90 million tonnes, however, 99 per cent of this was produced from natural gas, coal, or oil as per estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Extracting hydrogen from fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which means it is not environmentally sustainable.
Green hydrogen on the other hand doesn’t release any greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, making it an eco-friendly fuel. The Indian government also announced its National Green Hydrogen Mission earlier this year in an attempt to utilise its competitive advantage in the sector. Let us take a look at green hydrogen and its benefits, production in India, our competitive advantage, and the steps being taken by other countries to lead the production of this eco-friendly fuel.
