On 23rd and 24th of May, the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce (IGCC) along with the Indo-German Energy Forum (IGEF-SO) organised the sixth and seventh Business Roundtable on the topic of Green Hydrogen and German funding schemes for green hydrogen projects in Pune and Mumbai, respectively.

Mr. Achim Fabig, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Mumbai, gave the welcome remarks in Mumbai. He mentioned that the Government of Germany aims for climate neutrality by 2045. As per the National Green Hydrogen Strategy, the goal is to have 10 GW of electrolyser capacity in Germany until 2030. Another important goal of the national green hydrogen strategy is to promote an international hydrogen economy. This provides a great opportunity for Indo-German cooperation. This was followed with the welcome remarks by Mr. Stefan Halusa, Director General, IGCC. He mentioned that the German Industry estimates a requirement of 20 - 50 Gigawatt of Power-to-X Plants in Germany alone until 2030. In coming years, there will be demand by the German industry on energy imports also in the form of green hydrogen or green ammonia from abroad. It is an opportune time to access the opportunities provided by this industry.

At the Pune roundtable, the welcome remarks were given by IGCC representatives, Ms. Dipti Kanitkar and Ms. Shivani Chaturvedi. It was mentioned that in January 2023, the "National Green Hydrogen Mission" was officially adopted by the Indian government which supports the development of green hydrogen technologies to meet future energy needs in transport, industry and other sectors with an initial budget outlay of Rs.19,700 crore. Goal is to increase India's green hydrogen production capacity to at least 5 million tons per year by 2030.

 The Centre is planning to develop hydrogen valley innovation clusters (HVIC) in the country – hydrogen flagship projects covering the whole hydrogen value chain and serving more than one sector in mobility, industry, and energy.  Pune is strategically positioned to become a Hydrogen hub. 

The sessions featured detailed presentations on Green Hydrogen Market Developments in India by Mr. Sidharth Jain, MEC Intelligence as well as a presentation on German Funding Schemes for Green Hydrogen Projects by Mr. Tobias Winter, Director, IGEF-SO. Following the presentations, in-depth discussions began with the moderation by Mr. Winter with the impressive 40+ attendees at each of the roundtables. This enabled participants to provide their valuable inputs on how to scale up Green Hydrogen production in India and to harness the opportunities for exports to Germany. Some of the key take-aways that came up during the discussion are that India already belongs to the main users of grey hydrogen as part of the fertilizer and petrochemical industries. This bears a great potential for shifting to Green Hydrogen in the short and medium term. Other sectors such as heavy-duty transport and steel production can follow at a later stage. Secondly, German companies and their Indian partners are already investing in the ramp-up of India’s Green Hydrogen economy. German funding schemes offer financial support to these Indo-German Green Hydrogen Projects with grants of up to 2 million EUR.

We thank all the participants for their presence and for adding value to the discussions. For any further information, please contact Ms. Shivani Chaturvedi at shivani.chaturvedi(at)indo-german.com.