India takes direction from US definition of renewable hydrogen at 2kgCO2e/kg hydrogen

LONDON (ICIS)–India has announced its Green Hydrogen Standard which was issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the country has chosen a similar standard to the US.

Green (renewable) hydrogen in India must have well-to-gate emissions (including water treatment, electrolysis, gas purification, drying and compression of hydrogen) not more than 2kgCO2e/kg hydrogen as an average over the last 12 months.

This would be similar the threshold set by the US which comes out at 16.68gCO2e/MJ hydrogen according to ICIS, which is below the UK standard of 20gCO2e/MJ hydrogen.

The methodology for the measurement, reporting, monitoring, on-site verification, and certification of renewable hydrogen and its derivatives will be specified by the MNRE.

There have been calls from the industry for a global hydrogen standard on what constitutes renewable and/or low carbon hydrogen, with many countries (including India) seeking to export renewable hydrogen to other parts of the world such as Europe or southeast Asia.

India’s standard suggests that the renewable hydrogen could be produced from either electrolysis or through biomass.

India earlier this year launched its National Green Hydrogen Mission which included the development of renewable hydrogen production capacity of 5million tonnes/year with associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125GW in the country by 2030.