Hydrogen-CNG will be used in automotive and domestic cooking applications: Pradhan
Apr 15, 2021
New Delhi [India], 15 April : Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Steel on Thursday said that the Government is looking forward to introducing Hydrogen-CNG (H-CNG) as an intermittent technology "in a big way for both automotive and domestic cooking applications."
In the inaugural edition of the Hydrogen Roundtable titled "Hydrogen Economy: New Delhi Dialogue-2021", Pradhan said that "by establishing synergies with natural gas, hydrogen can be easily adopted in the energy mix without seeking major infrastructural overhauling.
"Our refineries are planning to leverage the available surplus hydrogen capacities in gray form for meeting the initial demand in mainstreaming hydrogen. One of such projects is underway at our Gujarat refinery of Indian Oil wherein the combination of hydrogen production through natural gas and its hyphenation with the carbon capture technology will result in the production of blue hydrogen," he said.
"Multiple buses powered by fuel cells will be covering various iconic routes. Efforts are underway to leverage the vast CNG pipeline infrastructure to reduce the transportation cost of hydrogen," he said adding that the utility of hydrogen is not going to be limited only to the transport sector.
"Role of hydrogen as a chemical is well known. We all now recognize the importance of hydrogen as an energy carrier and efforts are underway to devise ways to harness it in a reliable, cost-effective and safe manner," he added.
The Petroleum Minister said that India remains committed to environmental and climate causes with a massive thrust on deploying renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.
"In the past six years, India has increased its renewable power portfolio from 32 GW to almost 100 GW. We are well on track to achieve the 450 GW target of renewable energy generating capacity by 2030," he stated.
"Government of India recently announced the National Hydrogen Mission in the Union Budget 2021 for making a hydrogen roadmap for the country. We are working on a pilot project on Blue Hydrogen, Hydrogen CNG (H-CNG) and Green Hydrogen. Through technological advancements, we are blending hydrogen with compressed natural gas (CNG) for use as a transportation fuel as well as an industrial input to refineries. 50 buses in Delhi are plying on blended hydrogen in Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) on a pilot basis. We plan to scale it up in the coming months across the major cities of India," an official statement of the Petroleum Ministry said.
"Hydrogen is also capable of aligning with my Ministry's other flagship schemes, like the promotion of compressed biogas under the Sustainable Alternative for Affordable towards Transportation (SATAT) scheme or promoting the gas-based economy or other initiatives on Waste-to-Energy. Such integration will impart much more flexibility and capacity utilization to the vast infrastructure available or being created in India," it read.
