Green hydrogen purchase to be made mandatory: Union Power Minister

Green hydrogen would be brought under renewable purchase obligation (RPO), Union Power Minister R K Singh said on Tuesday. Under RPO, bulk purchasers like discoms, open access consumers and captive users are required to buy a certain proportion of renewable energy out of their total consumption of electricity. They can also buy RE certificates from renewable energy producers to meet the RPO norms.

Interacting with media in a virtual curtain raiser press conference on ‘India’s role as a Global Champion for the Energy Transition theme at the UN High Level Dialogue on Energy 2021’, Singh said the RPO for green hydrogen which can also be called hydrogen purchase obligation for states would ensure that products sells.

“We are going to include green hydrogen in RPO.”

Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy and electrolysis to split water and is distinct from grey hydrogen, which is produced from methane and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and blue hydrogen, which captures those emissions and stores them underground to prevent them causing climate change.

The minister also expressed dismay over under-achievement of RPO targets by states.

“Most states have not achieved their RPO. In 2030, total installed power generation capacity of the country would be 821 GW including 450 GW of renewables. (So RPO is required to be met by states),” the minister said.

He noted that there would be a penalty for states for not meeting the RPO.

Explaining about the high or unviable price of green hydrogen, he said the price will come down with an increase in volumes (sales and production) as was seen in the case of solar and wind energy.

In case of solar, the tariff had dipped to less than Rs 2 per unit in auctions for projects last year in December.

About the dumping of cheap solar equipment in the country he said the domestic manufacturing capacity would be scaled up to 70 GW by December 2022.

On meeting the ambitious target of 175GW of renewables by 2022, he admitted that the lockdown and other such restriction induced by COVID-19 have affected renewable projects in the country.

“We have to give (deadline) extension to RE projects. We had to extend the bids (for RE projects). This has caused disruption because lockdown was imposed.”

Also Read: Government open to new measures to boost Indian economy: CEA

According to a presentation in the press conference, India has already achieved 141 GW of RE (including large hydro projects) while 80 GW is under various stages of implementation and tendering.