MOSCOW (MRC) -- India plans to force refineries and fertilizer plants to use some green hydrogen, junior oil minister Rameswar Teli said on Monday, as Asia's third-largest economy strives to reduce carbon emissions, reported Reuters.
Governments and energy companies around the world are betting on clean hydrogen playing a leading role in efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, though its future uses and costs remain uncertain.
India's draft hydrogen policy will mandate a gradual increase in the use of green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels in refineries and fertilizer plants, Teli told lawmakers in a written reply to questions.
He did not give details, but noted green hydrogen is yet to be produced in India on a commercial scale due to the high cost of production.
Power minister R. K. Singh told lawmakers in early August that the draft National Hydrogen Mission policy, prepared by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, was under ministerial consultation. The policy aims to boost green hydrogen production and its use across multiple sectors, including transportation, he said.
India is already encouraging the use of hydrogen as a transport fuel, with some buses running on hydrogen blended fuel on a trial basis.
The draft policy wants green hydrogen to account for 10% of the overall hydrogen needs of refiners from 2023/24, rising to 25% in five years, a government source said. The respective requirements for the fertilizer sector are 5% and 20%, he added.
India is raising its renewable energy capacity, currently 92.97 gigawatts (GW), to meet about two-fifths of its electricity needs by 2030 under the Paris climate accord, compared with 36.7% currently. It wants to raise renewable energy capacity to 175 GW by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030.
India's top refiner Indian Oil Corp, top power utility NTPC Ltd and conglomerates including Reliance and Adani have announced plans to build green hydrogen projects.
Thus, as MRC wrote before, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will build the nation's first 'green hydrogen' plant at its Mathura refinery, as it aims to prepare for a future catering to the growing demand for both oil and cleaner forms of energy.
We remind that Indian refiners, anticipating a lifting of US sanctions, plan to make space for the resumption of Iranian imports by reducing spot crude oil purchases in the second half of the year. The world's third-largest oil consumer and importer halted imports from Tehran in 2019 after former US President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 accord and re-imposed sanctions on the OPEC producer over its disputed nuclear programme.
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