Union Minister for Steel Shri Ram Chandra Prasad Singh has informed that Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has proposed setting up of National Hydrogen Energy Mission with an aim to develop and scale up green hydrogen production technology, make it affordable and widely accessible. The steel sector has also been made a stakeholder in the Mission. Under this initiative, it has been proposed to set up pilot plants with part funding from Government to explore the feasibility of using green H2 in Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) production, by partly replacing natural gas with H2 in gas based DRI plants. Based on the success of the pilot projects, the gas based DRI units shall be encouraged for large scale adoption of the process.
Green H2 is produced through electrolysis of water using electricity produced from renewable energy. Green H2 is not commercially viable at present. However, with declining costs of renewable power generation and electrolysers, production of green hydrogen is likely to become cost competitive in future.