The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India has issued Guidelines for implementation of R&D Scheme under the National Green Hydrogen Mission.

The R&D scheme seeks to make the production, storage, transportation and utilization of green hydrogen more affordable. It also aims to improve the efficiency, safety and reliability of the relevant processes and technologies involved in the green hydrogen value chain.

The scheme also aims to foster partnerships among industry, academia and government in order to establish an innovation ecosystem for Green Hydrogen technologies. The Scheme will also help the scaling up and commercialization of Green Hydrogen technologies by providing the necessary policy and regulatory support. As mentioned in the Scheme Guidelines, which were issued on 15^th March, 2024, the R&D Scheme will be implemented with a total budgetary outlay of Rs. 400 crores till the financial year 2025-26.

The support under the R&D program includes all components of the Green Hydrogen value chain, namely, production, storage, compression, transportation, and utilization. The R&D projects supported under the Mission will be goal-oriented, time bound, and suitable to be scaled up. In addition to industrial and institutional research, innovative MSMEs and start-ups working on indigenous technology development will also be encouraged under the Scheme. The Scheme Guidelines can be accessed here.

Subsequent to the issue of the guidelines, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy issued Call for Proposals on 16^th March, 2024. While the Call for Proposals is receiving encouraging response, some stakeholders have requested more time for submission of R&D proposals. In view of such requests and to allow sufficient time to the institutions for submitting good-quality proposals, the Ministry has extended the deadline for submission of proposals to 27^th April, 2024. The extension order can be accessed here.

The National Green Hydrogen Mission was launched on 4th January, 2023 with an outlay of Rs. 19,744 crores up to the financial year 2029-30.

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PIB DELHI | Dheep Joy Mampilly