The Indian government is planning to blend 15% green hydrogen with piped natural gas (PNG) for domestic, commercial, and industrial consumption. The move is in line with India’s ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and becoming carbon neutral by 2070. This initiative will be part of the government’s National Hydrogen Energy Mission aimed at generating hydrogen from green power sources.
Earlier this year, Power Minister R K Singh had announced that the government will bring green hydrogen under renewable purchase obligation (RPO), which essentially means that bulk buyers such as Discoms and captive users have to buy a certain proportion of renewable energy (RE) out of their total power requirement. A similar mechanism will be created for hydrogen and it will be called hydrogen purchase obligation (HPO).
A senior government official said that at present, a note by the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) on the hydrogen mission has been circulated among stakeholders ministries including Power, New & Renewable Energy and Petroleum & Natural Gas.
The HPO will cover industries like oil refineries and fertiliser plants, which use grey hydrogen. The idea is to create demand for green hydrogen. HPO is likely to come from 2023.