Experts from academia and industry deliberated about the current status of hydrogen as a source of energy and the role it can play in making India carbon neutral at the International Platform on Hydrogen Economy – An Industry-Academia Conclave.
While inaugurating the Conclave, Dr. V K Saraswat, Member Science, NITI Aayog, said that with hydrogen demand increasing, companies are taking steps to increase hydrogen production as well as invest in technologies for it. As a result cost of hydrogen production is likely to come down in the future.
“Journey towards green hydrogen is through blue hydrogen accompanied with carbon capture & utilisation,” he pointed out.
Dr. Saraswat highlighted that we need to reduce the production cost of hydrogen and upscale production of electrolytes required for it, which are largely imported today. “Along with this, we need to clean up the grid, increase use of nuclear energy and produce cleaner fossil fuels for becoming carbon neutral,” he added.
Dr. S Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST), urged the experts at the conference to work on a white paper to make hydrogen a real perfect future fuel. “India has planned to become carbon neutral by 2070. We need practical solutions to make this achievable and invest resources in the right direction to make that happen,” Dr. Chandrasekhar said.
The conclave was organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to support academia-industry interaction in order to address the industry-informed challenges. It provided the member countries and coalition partners opportunities to show their leadership in significant demonstrations of future uses for hydrogen, which are very likely to be at the forefront of building future global hydrogen economies.
Dr. Akhilesh Gupta, Senior Adviser, DST, emphasised on an overall strategy to work on Hydrogen and on international collaborations to reach the target of carbon neutrality by 2070.
Dr. Ashish Lele, Director, CSIR-NCL, elaborated on the current status of hydrogen technologies in the country, while Mr. Noe Van Hulst, Special Advisor Hydrogen, IEA & Chair, IPHE, said that India has become an important player in the global enthusiasm on hydrogen and should look at potential collaborations with countries with hydrogen requirements in the future.
