At Bharat Electricity Summit 2026, the session titled “Hydrogen, Ammonia and Green Molecules: Building Competitive Industrial Value Chains for India and the World” was moderated by Kapil Bansal, Partner and Energy Transition Co-Lead, EY India, and featured remarks by Abhay Bakre, Mission Director, Green Hydrogen Mission, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE); Sangeet Jain, MD, Lanzatech; R.R. Sonde, Professor, IIT Delhi, and Chairman, Hydrogen Valley, Jodhpur; B.C. Tripathi, Vice Chairman, AM Green Ammonia; and S. Shaswattam, ED, NTPC, and Head, NETRA. The panel discussed the current status of the green hydrogen sector, key challenges and the way forward. Edited excerpts…
The panellists emphasised that the National Green Hydrogen Mission is an ambitious initiative, supported by India’s strong progress in scaling renewable energy over the past decade, particularly solar and wind. Green hydrogen is a highly versatile technology, as it can be converted into multiple forms, such as ammonia and methane, for use across sectors.
On the supply side, there are limited challenges, as renewable capacity expansion and transmission infrastructure are already being addressed. Electrolyser manufacturing is also progressing, with costs declining and domestic production being incentivised under the mission. However, the main challenge lies on the demand side. While some demand exists, such as blending in refineries and replacing grey ammonia with green ammonia in fertiliser units, there is a need to expand demand across more sectors. The mission is addressing this through incentives, standards and pilot projects. Cost is unlikely to be a long-term concern, and with technological readiness and growing confidence, large-scale adoption is expected. The overall objective remains to create demand and build industry confidence in order to shift towards renewable-based green energy.
Europe was seen as a key emerging market, with expectations of strong demand and investment flows, including from India. However, with the evolving global dynamics, the energy transition has experienced some slowdown, reducing the earlier momentum. As a result, the anticipated scale of demand has not materialised, particularly due to geopolitical and energy policy developments worldwide. This has created uncertainty within the industry regarding the pace and timing of project development and investments.
Despite this, the future outlook is positive, as the current situation is temporary and that momentum will return as scale and economic viability improve. However, demand growth remains a key concern, and more work is needed to build industry confidence. On the domestic front, existing efforts are not yet at a scale sufficient to achieve economic viability. Earlier strategies were focused on tapping export demand first and gradually developing the domestic market. However, there is now a need to rethink this approach and accelerate domestic demand creation without waiting for global markets to fully mature.
This is particularly important given India’s high dependence on imported natural gas, with significant supply coming from imports at varying and often high prices. In this context, it is critical for India to move faster in developing its domestic green hydrogen and ammonia ecosystem. While oil prices may stabilise relatively quickly, gas prices are likely to remain elevated for the next two to three years. Since ammonia production is heavily dependent on natural gas, this will continue to result in higher costs for gas, ammonia and nitrogen in India. In light of these factors, there is a need to revisit and refine the strategy, with a stronger focus on accelerating domestic demand creation.
Innovation is playing a critical role in advancing cleaner energy pathways. A key focus is on improving processes that enable the production of clean hydrogen while simultaneously enhancing value through effective carbon capture. Further, attention was drawn to the need to diversify carbon feedstocks. Instead of relying solely on conventional sources, efforts are being made to utilise various forms of waste, including industrial waste, agricultural waste and other carbon-rich residues. These waste streams present an opportunity to be converted into useful inputs through advanced processing techniques. One such approach involves gasification, where solid waste is converted into syngas. In combination with green hydrogen, these processes can be used to produce fuels such as ethanol.
Global developments, particularly after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have influenced the way countries are approaching emissions and energy transitions. There is increasing focus on carbon capture, utilisation, and storage as a key pathway to manage emissions while continuing to use existing energy resources. It was emphasised that captured carbon dioxide should not be viewed merely as a by-product but as a resource that can be utilised across multiple applications.
It is positive trend that renewable energy capacity has scaled up significantly, and this will be used for the production of green hydrogen. One of the key challenges identified was securing reliable and affordable round-the-clock or firm despatchable renewable energy. Access to a consistent power supply at competitive tariffs remains a major hurdle, and significant effort is currently being directed towards resolving this issue.
