changeadminAs part of the National Green Hydrogen Mission, the Indian government has initiated five pilot projects for using Hydrogen in buses and trucks.
In February 2024, India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy issued guidelines for implementing Pilot projects in the Transport Sector under this Mission. Accordingly, the proposals were invited for different types of hydrogen-based vehicles, routes, and hydrogen refueling stations.
After detailed scrutiny, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has sanctioned five pilot projects consisting of 37 vehicles (buses and trucks), and 9 hydrogen refueling stations.
The vehicles deployed for the trial include 15 hydrogen fuel cell-based vehicles and 22 hydrogen internal combustion engine-based vehicles.
These vehicles will run on 10 different routes across the country viz., Greater Noida – Delhi – Agra, Bhubaneshwar – Konark – Puri, Ahmedabad – Vadodara – Surat, Sahibabad – Faridabad – Delhi, Pune – Mumbai, Jamshedpur – Kalinga Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi, Kochi – Edappally, Jamnagar – Ahmedabad, and NH-16 Visakhapatnam – Bayyavaram.
The above projects awarded to major companies such as TATA Motors Ltd, Reliance Industries Limited, NTPC, ANERT, Ashok Leyland, HPCL, BPCL, and IOCL.
The total financial support for selected projects made available will be around Rs. 208 Crore from the Government of India. The pilot projects are likely to be commissioned in the next 18-24 months, paving the way to the scale up of such technologies in India.
The thrust area for providing support under the scheme is the development of commercially viable technologies for the utilization of hydrogen in the transport sector as fuel in buses and trucks, and supporting infrastructure like hydrogen refueling stations.
One of the objectives of the Mission is to support the deployment of Green Hydrogen as fuel in buses and trucks, in a phased manner on a pilot basis.
These pilot projects can demonstrate safe and secure operations, assess the effectiveness of hydrogen-based vehicles and refueling stations, validate technical feasibility and performance, and evaluate their economic viability, leading to hydrogen-based vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations under real-world operational conditions.
Transportation is one of the use cases of green hydrogen that the government of India is exploring, sectors such as steel, fertilisers and power generation are also on the government’s radar.
The National Green Hydrogen Mission was launched in January 2023 with an outlay of Rs. 19,744 crores up to FY 2029-30. It will contribute to India’s goal to become Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) through clean energy and serve as an inspiration for the global Clean Energy Transition.
The Mission will lead to significant decarbonization of the economy, reduced dependence on fossil fuel imports, and enable India to assume technology and market leadership in Green Hydrogen.
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