India’s green hydrogen ambitions extend beyond clean power to decarbonising hard-to-abate industries, building domestic manufacturing capabilities and unlocking an estimated ₹8-10 lakh crore investment opportunity, says Abhay Bakre, Mission Director, National Green Hydrogen Mission.
Q1. India has crossed 300 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity and is racing toward 500 GW. Yet you’ve argued that electricity alone cannot complete the energy transition. Why is that?
The way we talk about India’s energy transition, we often default to installed capacity and power generation. But electricity accounts for only around 23 per cent of the energy our economy actually consumes. The remaining 76 to 77 per cent is consumed in the form of molecules with fuels like coal, oil and gas. And most of those molecules we are importing today.
That’s the structural challenge. As our economy grows, so does our energy demand and the need for molecules across industry. Renewable electricity is already transforming the energy landscape, and the next opportunity is to extend that transformation to the molecular side of our energy system. This is where green hydrogen can play a central role, helping decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors and enabling a more sustainable, resilient energy future.
Q2. What does the investment opportunity around green hydrogen actually look like? The numbers being cited are significant.
Producing 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen requires roughly ₹1.5 lakh crore in investment. Our national target under the mission is 5 million tonnes of annual production by 2030. That puts the investment potential in hydrogen production alone at ₹8 to 10 lakh crore. And that’s before you factor in the associated infrastructure like pipelines, storage, transportation and port facilities needed to move green hydrogen and its derivatives at scale.
This is not a niche opportunity. It is one of the largest investment frontiers in India’s clean energy story, and it spans manufacturing, infrastructure and technology in equal measure.
Q3. The immediate focus of the mission is on replacing grey hydrogen in fertilisers and refineries. But you’ve spoken about the need to create demand well beyond those sectors. How do you see that unfolding?
The fertiliser and refinery sectors are the logical starting point because they already consume more than 6 million tonnes of grey hydrogen. Replacing that with green hydrogen is the most direct and near-term application. We’ve already awarded our first green ammonia tender, which could help displace 25 to 30 per cent of India’s grey ammonia imports.
But if we stop there, we limit the scale. And scale is what drives cost reduction. The first fundamental challenge with green hydrogen is cost, and cost can only come down if demand is large enough to justify scale. So, we are actively working to open new sectors like mobility, steel, process industries and shipping.
We have hydrogen-powered truck and bus trials running across more than 20 identified highways, with over six fuelling stations operational. We expect 45 to 50 hydrogen-powered vehicles in trials by the end of 2026 and are targeting at least 400 to 500 hydrogen buses or trucks operating by 2030. Even capturing a small share of maritime fuel demand would create meaningful volumes, given the scale of global shipping.
Q4. India is also being positioned as a future export hub for green hydrogen derivatives. How competitive is India’s position realistically?
India has a strong and genuine advantage here — our renewable energy costs are among the lowest in the world, and the ability to produce green hydrogen cheaply depends directly on the cost of the renewable electricity used to make it. That translates into a competitive position for green hydrogen derivatives like green ammonia and green methanol, which are far easier to transport over long distances than hydrogen itself.
Countries that currently import fossil fuels are actively looking to shift towards cleaner fuel supplies. India can be that supplier. The Pudimadaka green hydrogen hub near Visakhapatnam, our first dedicated hub under the mission, is being developed with a significant focus on the export market and involves an investment of approximately ₹1.85 lakh crore. That’s a signal of how seriously we are taking the export dimension.
Q5. There’s been consistent emphasis on domestic manufacturing like electrolysers, fuel cells, hydrogen equipment. Where does that stand?
This is non-negotiable for us. We cannot build a green hydrogen ecosystem on imported components. It would recreate the same dependency we are trying to eliminate.
