Electrolyser supply crunch hangs over India’s hydrogen ambitions

Electrolyser supply crunch hangs over India’s hydrogen ambitions

NEW DELHI- A global supply crunch of electrolysers needed to produce green hydrogen and a lack of domestic manufacturers to make them pose a major challenge to India's ambitious targets to use the zero-carbon fuel, a government official told Reuters.

India, which unveiled the first phase of its hydrogen policy on Thursday, plans to manufacture 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030, half of the European Union's 2030 target of 10 million tonnes.

Green hydrogen has the best environmental credentials of the various categories of the clean-burning fuel because it is produced using renewable energy.

For India, it is critical to its plans to cut carbon emissions, but its green hydrogen target would require at least 10 gigawatts (GW) of electrolyser capacity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

"The kind of electrolyser capacity that will be required to realise all these ambitious programmes, they are not available right now in the country," S. S. V. Ramakumar, a director at the country's top refiner Indian Oil IOC.NS who helped to frame the country's hydrogen policy, told Reuters.

"All the production capacity and order books of big global players are booked and overflowing till 2025," he said.

India will initially import electrolysers, he said