MNRE Scheme for Green Hydrogen Hubs

Green Hydrogen production requires bringing together of various sub sectors. From renewable energy suppliers to diverse base of customers. Further, given the high capex nature of the projects, a hub based approach is best suited to allow players to setup smaller green hydrogen projects and share the costs of peripheral infrastructure. With this intent in mind, MNRE has launched the scheme to facilitate setting up of 2 green hydrogen hubs in the country by FY26. This is similar to the solar park initiative in case of solar power projects. 

Key highlights of the scheme are:

1. Focussed on development of core infrastructure for common services / facilities like storage & transportation facilities, development / upgradation of pipelines, water treatment facilities, transmission lines to the hub etc.

2. Each hub to have minimum 100,000 MTPA Green Hydrogen production capacity.

3. To be implemented in PPP mode encouraging private sector / PSUs to participate in development of Hub as Execution Agency.

4. Grant of upto Rs 100 cr for each hub to be made available against completion milestones

5. Implementing Agency: Scheme Implementing agency to be nominated by MNRE.

6. Selection of Execution Agency through a proposal with weights (50% planned capacity, 20% Technology, 30% Financial Commitment). 80% weight to the proposal and 20% weight to a presentation to the evaluation committee.

While the scheme is good in its approach and gets many things correct, it is seriously flawed in its size and scale. Rs. 100 cr is not enough to build support infrastructure for any meaningful sized Green Hydrogen Hub. Further, for increasing use of shared infrastructure on storage and transportation side, standardisation of Green Hydrogen is paramount. With different buyers stipualting different requirements to enable green categorisation, this is not easy to achieve. GoI needs to put in places its own standards and stipulations to enable this.  

The MNRE scheme can be downloaded here.