The demand aggregation will help in creating substantial volume to facilitate commercial supply of green hydrogen.
The Centre will issue tenders based on the ‘demand aggregator’ model for green hydrogen. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in its latest Cabinet note has proposed that demand for green hydrogen from key sectors such as fertilisers, steel, and refineries would be aggregated and offered as a mega tender.
The Cabinet note has been sent to ministries of petroleum and natural gas, law, department of fertilisers, among others for their comments. The demand aggregation will help in creating substantial volume to facilitate commercial supply of green hydrogen.
MNRE has proposed that SECI can host the bidding process, unless any other agency is not suggested by other ministries. SECI is the nodal agency under MNRE for tendering solar and wind power projects.
Senior officials said the new National Hydrogen Mission which is in works would outline the purchase obligation of green hydrogen for several industries. “This would in turn help in designing the tender as the demand calculations would be available,” said an official.
Union Minister for Power, New and Renewable Energy R K Singh last month said, green hydrogen would be included in the ‘Renewable Purchase Obligation’ (RPO) regime. RPO entails states/power discoms to purchase a certain portion of their energy demand from green energy sources.
MNRE is hoping that with mega tender, the cost of green hydrogen would also come down.
A similar model of bidding was followed for LED disbursement where the cost came down to Rs 60 per bulb from over Rs 300 in two years.
“Several players are interested in green hydrogen now, including oil companies. This would give them an incentive to produce more,” said the official.
State-owned thermal power giant NTPC Ltd, Adani Enterprises, new entrant Reliance Industries, ACME Solar, state-owned oil marketing company Indian Oil Ltd have announced their foray into green hydrogen production.
Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy and electrolysis to split water. This is 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.
NTPC issues tender for Hydrogen Buses in Delhi, Leh
State-owned power generator NTPC Ltd would run 5 buses each in Delhi and Leh powered by green hydrogen. It has issued an ‘Invitation for Bids’ for procuring fuel cell electric buses. After Andaman where NTPC launched 14 Hydrogen buses early this year, this would be the first for Delhi and Leh.
The tender has been floated by its arm NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN). “These buses would be zero emission vehicles in true form as even the hydrogen would be generated from renewable energy making it a pure green initiative ushering a new era of hydrogen based zero emission futuristic mobility solutions,” said an official.
The green hydrogen would be supplied to the buses by NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd, the green energy arm of NTPC.
Source: business-standard
