India has Potential to Completely Reimagine its Energy Economy: Amitabh Kant

India has the potential to completely reimagine its energy economy by leveraging decades of innovation in clean energy, said Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog.

We can show the world that sustainability and rapid growth can go hand in hand, he added.

He was speaking during the first discussion of the ‘South-Asia New Energy Series’ organised by FTI Consulting and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) on the topic ‘enabling policy and regulations’.

This Series is a set of stakeholder consultations on five consecutive Thursdays through June 2021, focusing on building renewables, battery tech and hydrogen based pathway for India.

Emphasizing on reducing imports through green hydrogen usage in India, Amitabh Kant said “green hydrogen as an energy carrier can replace some of India’s energy-related imports. India consumes 8.5% of the global demand of hydrogen, made from 18 MT of import-dependent natural gas.”

Kant added that, “we have among the lowest prices of renewable power, which can help India become a major producer of green hydrogen, critical to meet India’s ambitious target of 450 GW renewable energy by 2030. Every 1 GW of green hydrogen electrolysis needs 3 GW of renewable power. The potential is huge. We can use the surplus renewable power in peak generating hours to produce green hydrogen, which will also protect the grid.”

On the other hand, H.E. Ugo Astuto, Ambassador for the European Union to India, who also attended the Series, shared details about the European Union and India partnership on sustainable solutions and said, “the EU and India have a well-established cooperation in place under the EU-India Clean Energy and Climate Partnership. At the recent EU-India Leaders Meeting on 8 May, it was agreed to further strengthen this partnership and to step up cooperation in energy efficiency, renewables, smart grid & storage technology, modernizing the electricity market and strengthening regional electricity interconnection.”

“A new EU-India Connectivity Partnership was also agreed, which will foster work in sustainable digital, transport and energy networks,” Ugo Astuto added.

“Future energy systems will have hydrogen integrated with renewable energy and battery technologies within this decade. The South Asia New Energy Series should lead to more regular capacity-building for India stakeholders, and the sharing of best practices between global industry players and governments. Policy makers and industry must collaborate on enabling policies, funding, standards and commercialisation of new, clean energy systems like hydrogen. This builds on the momentum to facilitating commercialisation of hydrogen systems and policies in India,” commented Amrit Singh Deo, Senior Managing Director, Strategic Communications, FTI Consulting.

On green hydrogen commercialisation, Dr. Vibha Dhawan, Director General, TERI, said, “the South Asia New Energy Series connects developments between renewable energy and battery scale-up, with green hydrogen commercialisation. This has significant implications for policy design as well as project development. The government has already announced the formation of a National Hydrogen Energy Mission. I expect the deliberations during the series will provide meaningful input to promote clean energy and facilitate more government-industry collaboration.”