Research Publications

Hydrogen, an attractive energy carrier due to its high energy content per unit mass, offers   multiple promising pathways towards significant global decarbonization efforts when produced with renewable energy sources. RMI and NITI Aayog project that India’s hydrogen demand will rise by about 23 million tons from 2020 to 2050, with 94% of that increase representing an opportunity for green hydrogen. Through supply chain investments, replacement of gray hydrogen in existing applications, and support of pilot projects, the National Green Hydrogen Mission hopes to establish India as a global hub for green hydrogen production, use, and export. 

Green hydrogen offers potential solutions to India’s present grid reliability challenges through long-duration energy storage, captive power generation, and ammonia co-firing. Storing excess renewable energy as green hydrogen can address renewable variability across a wide array of time periods, and international examples in the UK and Japan provide valuable insights and context for India’s energy transition.

In collaboration with RMI India, we aim to assess in this report the feasibility of green hydrogen and ammonia deployment across ten potential pathways, focusing on three key applications: ammonia co-firing, captive generation, and long-duration energy storage. By analyzing the technical, economic, and political feasibility of each pathway, we seek to identify the most effective pathways for India to achieve its green hydrogen and renewable energy targets and provide insights into potential implementation strategies.  Our conclusions yield the following recommendations:

1. The Indian Government should prioritize an implementation strategy encompassing hydrogen compression for above-ground hydrogen storage and electricity generation via fuel cells (Pathway 2) for short-term energy storage, and substitute underground hydrogen storage (Pathway 4) into this strategy for long-term storage.
2. Further research into and development of geologic basins throughout India, including depleted gas reservoirs, should be undertaken in order to increase the country’s underground storage capacity.
3. A hybrid storage strategy combining above- and below-ground methods at a national scale offers the best chance to simultaneously support growing supply chains and balance short- and long-term demands.
4. India should invest in further research regarding the role of green ammonia as a seasonal storage vector, while avoiding its deployment toward power generation through co-firing.
5. Captive power generators should prioritize purchasing hydrogen-based fuels to generate power onsite rather than producing hydrogen with excess renewable power.
6. The Indian Government should update their National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) periodically to include all 10 IRENA recommended policy provisions.
7. The Indian Government must chiefly focus on expanding its renewable energy generation capacity. Green hydrogen relies on renewable electricity, and maximizing the use and integration of renewable energy into the grid should be a top priority.