In its aim to develop a carbon-free economy based on renewable sources and green hydrogen, the country’s first green hydrogen mobility project will be set up in Ladakh.
NTPC REL, the renewable energy arm of State-run power giant NTPC, has signed a memorandum of understanding ( MoU)with the union territory of Ladakh.
NTPC will support Ladakh in its pursuit to become a carbon-free economy based on green hydrogen sources. In order to achieve that, the power giant will aim to first ply five hydrogen buses and follow it up with a solar project and a green hydrogen generation unit in Leh.
What is green hydrogen?
Hydrogen generated by electrolysis employing renewable energy is known as Green Hydrogen which has no carbon footprint.
The primary source of hydrogen we use today is produced using fossil fuel. Organic materials such as fossil fuels and biomass are used for releasing hydrogen through chemical processes.
Significance of Green Hydrogen:
Green hydrogen energy is essential for India to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) targets and ensure regional and national energy security, access and availability. The trump card that unfolds to illustrate the importance of Green Hydrogen is that it can act as an energy storage option, which would be essential to meet intermittencies (of renewable energy) in the future.
In terms of mobility, to ensure longer distance mobilisations for either urban freight movement within cities and states or for passengers, Green Hydrogen can be used in railways, large ships, buses or trucks, etc.
Indian government efforts in the production of green hydrogen
In the budget 2020–2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the launch of the Hydrogen Energy Mission to produce hydrogen from renewable sources. In the same month, state-owned Indian Oil Corporation in its efforts to promote R&D projects for the production of green and blue hydrogen signed an agreement with Greenstat Norway for setting up a Centre of Excellence on Hydrogen (CoE-H) between Norwegian and Indian R&D institutions/universities.
In the same direction, recently, India and the US have set up a dedicated team under the aegis of the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) to mobilise finance and speed up green energy development.
After the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), NTPC’s first solar installations in Leh was inaugurated in the form of solar trees and a solar carport, according to reports.
As far as NTPC is concerned, it is actively expediting green and clean projects and the green hydrogen project is one step towards achieving a low carbon footprint. NTPC has also been encouraging the method of green hydrogen-based solutions in sectors like mobility, energy, chemical, fertilizer, steel etc. Recently, NTPC has commissioned India’s largest floating solar project of 10 MW at Visakhapatnam.
