India aims to become energy exporter

India should aim to become a net exporter of energy with the growth of Hydrogen as a fuel, Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday.

"Our focus is to harness the domestic sources of energy to become a net energy exporter from an energy importer," he told reporters on the sidelines at the launch of Green Hydrogen run vehicles. Gadkari flagged off the Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Toyota Mirai. Toyota Kirloskar Motor and International Center for Automotive Technology also signed an agreement to conduct a pilot project to study and evaluate the performance of the car on Indian roads.

"This (Hydrogen) is an indigenous fuel. The import bill of the country is around ?8 lakh crore, if it continues like this, the import bill will cross ?25 lakh crore. The economy will be affected if import substitution does not become the norm,” he said.

Gadkari said he has requested the Power Ministry for incentives to produce Green Hydrogen. "They have agreed to waive off transmission duty and some other charges for Green Hydrogen," he said."Industries such as cement can use Green Hydrogen and India hopes to become a country that exports the fuel. This is a deviation from the present situation where we import 80 per cent of our fuel need. There are options of using floating solar panels for making Hydrogen," he added. Gadkari said a policy for electrolysers will soon be formed,adding electrolysers currently cost ?1.2 crore a piece.

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