Green Hydrogen: The Clean Energy Alternative That Is Yet To Be

Green hydrogen has been celebrated as a silver bullet. It is not. It is expensive, complex and often misunderstood. But it is also one of the very few viable tools for deep industrial decarbonisation.

India has the resources to transform this green energy potential into a reality for industrial competitiveness and climate leadership — if and only it surpasses availability bottlenecks and scalability hurdles. 

From the National Green Hydrogen Mission’s ambitious five million tonnes per annum production target to multi-billion-dollar commitments from conglomerates, the bet on green hydrogen is enormous.

India aims to capture 10% of international green hydrogen demand, which is projected to be 100 million metric tonnes by 2030. As of now, India has 8,62,000 tonnes per annum of green hydrogen production capacity from around 19 companies under the National Green Hydrogen Mission. 

However, the question is whether we are building a strong foundation of a transformative green hydrogen economy — or inflating a bubble driven by global hype cycles.

In order to understand, we must look beyond the policy slogan and electrolyser efficiency charts. 

Alok Kumar, Founder & Director of Saarthi GreenTech, who has spent years deploying hydrogen-based systems across factories, transport fleets, mining equipment and backup power, said, “The real cost barrier is not producing green hydrogen, but delivering it to the point of use. Storage, compression, transport, ammonia conversion and re-conversion, safety layers and last-mile logistics often cost more than the hydrogen itself.”

This changes every calculation in India's hydrogen ambition. India is moving rapidly down the cost curve. Falling renewable energy prices and domestic electrolyser manufacturing are pushing production costs closer to global benchmarks. 

Kumar believes that achieving green hydrogen production at ₹180–₹250/kg by 2030 is realistic. However, hydrogen is notoriously difficult to move. Compressing it to 350-700 bar, liquefying it at –253°C, converting it into ammonia, shipping it, storing it — each step adds weight and cost. 

Kumar warns that long-distance movement can double the delivered cost, effectively wiping out production efficiencies. “The defining question is not ‘How cheaply can we make hydrogen?’ but ‘How close can we make hydrogen to where it will be used?’”

This insight has far-reaching consequences. If the economics hinge on location rather than production scale, the future belongs not to mega hydrogen parks, but to decentralised, point-of-use hydrogen generators.

India — with its dispersed factories, logistics hubs, DG-set–dependent campuses, and mining clusters — may actually be better suited to this distributed model than any major economy.

The country is currently moving towards achieving its goal rapidly as public sector units are experimenting with hydrogen in steelmaking and refineries, while start-ups are testing hydrogen buses. Many of these pilots deliver impressive technical results.

Scalability Concerns

Yet scalability remains difficult.

Hydrogen production tied to solar plants often runs only when the sun is shining. That destroys electrolyser utilisation and raises costs. 

Batteries can help, but raise capital requirements. Even if production stabilises, the next hurdles — storage, compression, end-use integration and operations — are formidable.

“A high-efficiency electrolyser does not solve the larger challenges,” Kumar notes. “India’s energy demand is inherently distributed. Hydrogen hubs alone cannot decarbonise India. Hydrogen must either learn to travel economically, or better, learn not to travel at all,” he added.

India's Own Hydrogen Path

Global hydrogen narratives often come from Europe, Japan and South Korea — regions with dense power grids. However, India’s realities are different. India must avoid importing models that ignore its geographical, industrial and supply-chain diversity.

Hydrogen is only as clean as the electricity that produces it. Scaling solar, wind, hydro, and especially nuclear will do more to help hydrogen than next-gen catalysts.

With huge domestic demand in steel, cement, chemicals, logistics and DG power, India should prioritise domestic decarbonisation over volatile export markets.

The Availability Bottleneck

Across trucks, buses, ports, mining, cement, and power generation, a striking pattern emerges: equipment may be ready, but hydrogen availability is not.

This is why diesel generators continue to dominate remote regions. Why hydrogen vehicles stay stuck in pilot mode. Why industrial burners and furnaces cannot make the leap.

“Hydrogen will not replace fossil fuels until it is available at the point of use,” Kumar told The Secretariat. 

A Geopolitical Currency

Green hydrogen is now a geopolitical currency. Europe worries about Russian gas, Japan about maritime chokepoints, China about energy independence. These fears have accelerated hydrogen adoption globally.

India wants a slice of the export market too — especially ammonia shipments to Europe and Japan. But volatility in global carbon markets and fluctuating clean hydrogen definitions mean the export dream is far from guaranteed.

A wiser bet may be to first build a robust domestic hydrogen economy, using it to decarbonise heavy industries and transport sectors that already consume massive amounts of fossil fuel.

(The writer is an independent journalist. Views are personal.)