A new report 'Green Hydrogen: Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India' released by Suman Bery, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog and Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog highlights that green hydrogen is critical to India’s 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 & steel and transport.

It further states that with emerging global momentum on hydrogen, India can situate this decarbonisation 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.

Speaking on the occasion, Suman Bery, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog said, ”An important message of the report was that green hydrogen can potentially provide a replacement of fossil fuels in industrial processes.”

“The next steps at the policy level could involve arriving at the correct mix between mandates/regulations and price instruments,” added Bery.

Kant said, "The importance of green hydrogen from the point of view of energy security and the need to achieve size and scale to push down costs of green hydrogen." He remarked that, given the right policies, India can emerge as the lowest cost producer and bring down the price of green hydrogen to US $1 per kg by 2030.

The report concludes that hydrogen demand in India could grow more than four fold by 2050, representing almost 10% 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 US $8 billion by 2030.

Highlighting the opportunity, Clay Stranger, Managing Director, RMI said, "There is significant global interest in green hydrogen and countries are in the first stages of formulating a strategy and this will ultimately decide the winners and losers of the hydrogen economy."