India will also Emerge as Leader in Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia: RK Singh

The Union Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh said that India will also emerge as a leader in Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia.

During his address at the conference of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on “Aatmairbhar Bharat - Self Reliance for Renewable Energy Manufacturing”, the Minister also informed that India proposes to green industry sectors to replace Grey Hydrogen (drawn from imported natural gas) with Green Hydrogen and for this it will come out with a Green Hydrogen Purchase Obligation for different sectors like petroleum and fertilizer. 

This will also provide huge demand for domestically manufactured solar and wind equipments as well as storage, he added.

Singh also informed that Government proposes to come out with Rules and Regulations providing for easier Open Access for those industries which want to become green i.e. which want to rely on green energy for their functioning.  Industry will be able to either set up green energy manufacturing capacity itself or through a developer and draw power from it through open access. The surcharge on open access will also be rationalized so as to ensure that open access is not saddled with unfair levies.

He further stated that India had emerged as world leader in the energy transition and had one of the fastest rates of growth of renewable energy capacity in the world.

The Minister pointed out that India had achieved universal access by connecting every village and every hamlet under Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana Scheme and connecting every household under Saubhagya Scheme. It was the fastest and the largest expansion of access in the world. This had also resulted in the demand for electricity going up rapidly.

He also informed that India has already touched 200 GW of demand even when the effects of COVID-19 was still there. The demand had crossed what it was during the pre-Covid time and it is expected that electricity demand will continue to rise. This gives us the space for adding more renewable energy capacity.

The Minister further said that Government is determined that the job creation due to this capacity addition must be located in India and that is why Aatmanirbhar Bharat is important.  

He pointed out that some countries had been dumping solar cells and modules at very low price and harming our local industry. To prevent dumping it was decided to impose customs duty on imported cells and modules so as to provide protection to Indian Industry from dumping.