On September 25, the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri flagged off India’s first green hydrogen fuel cell bus in Delhi.
India’s First Green Hydrogen Cell Bus Launch
They have scheduled 15 green hydrogen buses to be operational by the end of 2023, Puri said.
Further adding, “The success of this project can catapult India from being a net importer of fossil energy to becoming a net exporter of clean hydrogen energy; provide global leadership to other countries in terms of technology transfer, while becoming a large green hydrogen producer and supplier of manufacturing parts.”
While giving more information about this new hydrogen fuel-powered vehicle, he said that it can be refilled in a few minutes, nearly as fast as fossil fuel can fill an internal combustion engine.
How Did This Happen?
For the unawares, this project for green hydrogen fuel cell buses has been undertaken by Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) in collaboration with Tata Motors.
Continuing the same, Indian Oil has initiated a scientifically designed program to undertake operational trials of 15 fuel cell buses powered by green hydrogen on the identified routes in Delhi, Haryana and U.P.
Besides this, the largest government owned oil producer has also established a state-of-the-art dispensing facility at our R&D Faridabad campus.
This facility is meant to refuel green hydrogen produced from electrolysis using solar PV panels.
With this move, India would be a global champion in production and exports of hydrogen and is set to emerge as the hub for green hydrogen, Puri noted.
According to Puri, the global demand for hydrogen is expected to increase by four to seven times to 500-800 MT by 2050.
Similarly, the domestic demand is expected to increase by four times, from current 6MT at present to 25-28 MT by 2050.
It appears that the petroleum ministry has taken pioneering initiatives in the sphere of green hydrogen and is accelerating its efforts to produce and utilize green hydrogen in the refineries, Puri added.
And why not as “the projects pertaining to hydrogen blending in natural gas pipelines, localization of electrolyzer based technologies, promotion of bio-pathways for green hydrogen production are being pursued aggressively,” he said.
