Can Green Hydrogen Drive India’s Clean Energy Future? | ft. Vijay Shekhawat

[Podcast intro]

Welcome to the season five of the India Energy Hour podcast. This podcast explores the most pressing hurdles and promising opportunities of India energy transition through an in depth discussion on policies, financial markets, social movements and science. Your hosts for this episode are Shreya Jai, Delhi based energy and climate journalist and Dr. Sandeep Pai, Washington based energy transition researcher and author. The show is produced by 101 reporters, a pan India network of grassroots reporters that produces original stories from rural India. If you like our podcast, please rate us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or the platform where you listen to our podcast. Your support will help us reach a larger audience.

Hydrogen is gaining significant traction as a key element in the global and Indian transition to clean energy. However, with different types of hydrogen production—green, grey, and blue—there’s much to unpack. Green hydrogen, produced from renewable energy sources, is widely regarded as the most sustainable option but is very expensive to produce. India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission, with a target of 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen by 2030, is a bold move in the country’s energy transition. But is this target too ambitious? What does the policy landscape around hydrogen in India look like, and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead?

To understand the role of hydrogen, especially green hydrogen, in India’s energy transition, we interviewed Vijay Shekhawat, Vice President (Public Affairs), Thyssenkrupp Nucera. Vijay is regarded as an energy expert with a deep understanding of India’s energy landscape.

[end]

[Podcast interview]

Sandeep Pai: Good evening, Vijay, and Really welcome to the india energy hour podcast. I’ve been really meaning to have you on the podcast, but just sometimes time time doesn’t allow or, you  know, you get busy, but I’ve been really wanting to have you to discuss hydrogen as I see you as one of the leading experts on this topic and among other things, but, you know, really looking at this topic from various lenses. So really welcome to the India Energy Hour podcast.

Vijay Shekhawat: Thank you, Sandeep. And I think it’s always, and every time it’s a pleasure to speak with you. We had a discussion few times, and it’s always interesting to, dig deeper into some of the topics.And it’s great to be here.

Sandeep Pai: Thank you. Wonderful. So, you know, as our norm is in this podcast, we always start with the person because people have so many interesting trajectories. There’s no in the previous generation, there was no set part of how you work in climate and energy and people get in the space through so many different channels and happenstance and, opportunity. So just where are you from? What did you study? How did you actually get into this? Not so much from a degree angle, although do mention all that, but how what sparked interest in you in terms of, like, getting in this space?

Vijay Shekhawat: I think, when you look about, the sector and energy, you know, when I look at, that when did I start working for the sector, it wasn’t, like a big thought. It was just a series of moments that kept pulling me to the to the sector at some point. Okay? I spent my life, in a lot of, number of states in India. My father was in police services, so we keep on traveling, meeting, interacting with people, changing schools. And, 2010, I was in US. When I came back, I began my career with the government policy, working at the intersection of infrastructure and economic planning. In that time, we used to do a lot of, public private partnership, trying to see that how we can bring more and more private sector into, different, key areas and sectors which are important for the economy to grow, how the institutions should function, how the policy decisions are make. And, that somewhere build that the liking for the sector. It was under the infrastructure, energy was one vertical. I was not very much focused on energy. It was we were doing roads, transport, and highways. And then the first assignment which I took was on the power purchase agreements, where 2010, we realized that that time we were, going through the same journey what we are, in the green hydrogen space where you have the price at a higher level and then try to see that, how we can scale down the price, how we can get the economies of scale, and all those angles. And that’s how the the energy part part started happening where I was part of the you can see every drafting committee meeting, which was happening to design this renewable policy, standard bidding documents, a lot of engagement with the independent power producers, and try to see that how we can scale the sector from a rupees 16 to currently what we have, just 2 and a half rupees, per unit. So that was the government journey which started. But after that, I moved to a couple of international agencies, where, again, the focus was infrastructure, but more on the energy side where I tried to see that how, at an international level, bilateral, corporation level, we can look at some of this, this work. And I’ve done quite, a bit of geographies from, Israel to Australia to US, Africa. And, so that’s when I consciously shifted my focus to energy. I realized that it’s not an engineering challenge, but a system of empowerment which we can use, in the transformation process. And, I think you must have,  in my earlier discussion with you, I must have mentioned that I’ve strongly believe in two transitions which are happening in this decade. One is the energy transition, and second is the digital transition. I think that’s very, very important. And if we do it right, I think, it’s not the climate story. It’s a development story which we can build. So that’s how, the movement into the energy space happened. So larger, infrastructure umbrella to a very specific energy work. So that’s what it is.

Sandeep Pai: Right. If I can ask one quick follow-up, like, what was your background? Like, educational or, you know, like How did you get into infra?

Vijay Shekhawat: Yeah. So I have done so that time, you know, it was very, very, nobody was thinking about getting into infra, especially the policy regulation planning. And, I did my MBA in infrastructure management. So, it was focused on the key policies, energy economics, which happens, the utilities, the regulations, which are needed, especially for the PPP sector. And I always wanted to work with the person called Gajin Haldi at that time. He was heading the PPP and infrastructure division at the he was adviser to the vice chairman that time, and he wrote all the model concessional agreements for lot of across sectors. So but, I think it’s just by it’s just happened that, I started, understanding the sector, and then I got a chance to, work with the, the the national planning and policy body. And, it was the first time when, the government opened, this lateral entry for some of the sector experts to come and be part and, engage in those discussions because, before that, era, it was basically a very senior bureaucrat will come into, these agencies with a lot of experiences, lot of groundwork, and then they used to design those policies. So, a fresh, you can say, a young, person will not get a chance to see what’s happening in the policy front, but that’s how they they started opening that sector to bring some of the lateral entrance and see that how the sector specialist can can support and, not only support and understand how the policy making is happening at the national level. So

Sandeep Pai: Right. That’s excellent. One more quick question. You mentioned something about, like, you worked in different states. If you can, did I get that right? Like, you’ve worked in different sort of state governments or what kind of state were you talking about, if you wanna No.

Vijay Shekhawat: No. I think the engagement at the planning commission happens with different states because that’s the body which makes a lot of sectoral policies, and that’s how those policies were implemented at a state level, at a subnational level. So that engagement was also very, very helpful for me to understand where actually the the losses in the distributions, are there, suppose for, as an example, and, what are the challenges the state utilities are actually facing, where things are, even as a simple, aspect of, like, skilling, people understanding, the PPP part and the public private investments which is coming to some of these projects. And climate was a long way and sustainability and all those all these words are very, very new to, to that level of government at that point where, something was going from the center and then try to work on the centrally governed schemes, you can say. So that’s how it is. It was. Yeah.

Sandeep Pai: Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for explaining your background. I think that’ll be very useful, especially when we start to discuss hydrogen. So let’s just start with, like, really one zero one. There’s so many types of hydrogen, green, gray, and blue. Can you explain just provide us an understanding of what these different things mean?

Vijay Shekhawat: So I think it is important to understand, especially as, when we see hydrogen becoming a central player in our entire clean energy transition. When you look at and when you talk about hydrogen, it itself is a very clean fuel. Okay? It only produces water as a byproduct, whether you burned it or you use in the fuel cell. But the actual environmental impact really depends on how the hydrogen is produced. And these are the color codes which come and help us quickly understand the source and the emissions which are behind this hydrogen where we are talking about. And so, you must have and a lot of listeners, know about the gray gray hydrogen, which is the most common at present. We make it from the natural gas. The process is SMR steam methane reforming. The problem, I think we are using it for so long. It’s just that it emits a significant amount of CO2. So whereas the hydrogen we want, it should be clean, and this is very carbon intensive. So that’s the gray one. And then the second color is, like, what we call the blue hydrogen. It is, again, coming from the natural gas, but the difference is we capture the carbon, which is, which is coming out through through a method called carbon CCUS carbon capture and storage. Cleaner than gray, but, again, the source is fossil fuel, which is a natural gas or a transition fuel, you can say. If you talk about green hydrogen, yes, definitely, it’s a game changer. You made it by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, and you use renewable energy. There are a couple of other colors of hydrogen also. Pink hydrogen, which we are using, nuclear energy. Try to see that, if that can be done. So, and there is another one, turquoise hydrogen, which is, again, we use, pyrolysis, to split methane and all. So but mostly, you hear about all these three colors, which is gray, blue, and green, and, green being the gold standard for the net zero future, what we are talking about. So I think this is, the color codes currently for the green hydrogen in this space.

Sandeep Pai: Right. Let me ask one more easy fundamental question. I just to set the basic clear for every listener who is listening. They may be from different fields. What are some of the applications? Why do we care about hydrogen? Why are we talking about hydrogen so much? And what are key applications that it can bridge?

Vijay Shekhawat: I think when you look at applications, we have a cross sector we can apply, and we have to see that as a molecule, hydrogen has its potential to decarbonize some of the sectors that are otherwise very hard to clean up. Okay? So hydrogen is what we can call as an energy carrier, and you can produce it from the various different sources. Like I said, you can use gas, renewable energy. And when this hydrogen is produced cleanly, especially the green hydrogen, it becomes a very, very powerful tool in our climate toolkit because, then you are talking about a complete decarbonization of some of the sectors. And like I said, storage and flexibility is very important because you can store hydrogen for long period. So it is very, very important for its application in different sectors. So suppose if you talk about industrial decarbonization, whether steel, cement, chemicals, where you actually rely on high temperature heat and the fossil fuel based feedstock. So where the hydrogen can replace the coal and the natural gas for all these processes for steel? Mobility, yes. We have a lot of applicability. It can happen for the heavy duty trucking because, when battery based electrification, when we talk about it, challenging due to the weight and the range of limitations which we have. There are very, very initial applications into gas turbines, backup power. But it is also very, very important to see that it is putting a country like India on a export opportunity map because you know what we are actually importing from,  on our crude requirement. So for a country like India with abundant resources on solar, wind, hydrogen is definitely a future export commodity, which will put us in the world map, and it is not just another fuel, which will definitely bring, and the gap which is there in terms of the import and export, what we are doing, and expanding the export footprint. So it is very, very important.

Sandeep Pai: Actually, can you explain a little bit about this export, logic? I mean, doesn’t India need a lot of resources given India’s energy demand will increase so much? So, like, yeah, I was just curious. How does India get to export? My understanding was maybe slightly different and, like, India needs to first meet its own demand. So yeah. Would love to hear.

Vijay Shekhawat: So the so there are two, three things. One is, like I said, that it is very, very important to look at the scale of the ambition, what we are trying to do. Okay? And when you look at the national green hydrogen mission, we have a good target of five, million metric tons of green hydrogen, which we want to achieve till 2030. So it is that we have to see how much we want to scale this green hydrogen on the long term goal depending on the kind of policy which we are bringing. But also that initially for this years, what we are or this decade, what we are talking about, is there a possibility to expand to some of the international markets and get what actually we want to, capture some of the international market and get the scale what we want to achieve for this product what we are making. Because there are two, three things in terms of costing. Is it possible for us to actually, in this current scenario, to manage the three dilemmas? I think which, you must have listened from the minister all the three dilemmas where you talk about affordability, accessibility, and availability. And, one of the important pillar for for us is, affordability because, the first priority for any government and in any public policy is that, to provide access to electricity to some of these, some of our population where it is not accessible. So we have to see that sector by sector, first we move, address those sectors which can be catered easily, like some of the hard to abate sectors, which is difficult to actually elect do the electrification, and then move to some of these lower applications where we see transportation and others. But some of the sectors, whether refineries, fertilizers, these are the sectors which are like guzzlers of, you can say, doing the carbon emissions. Right? So how much blending you can do? What percentage of components you can change to the green fuel? I think this is something which we have to do use. But, again, export is very important on two aspects. One, across the world, and you must have seen all the trade scenarios which is happening across different, countries where they’re trying to look at the global supply chains, especially around the energy security, and try to see that is it possibility is it possible that we can diversify some of our sources? And Europe is one example where they were heavily dependent on one country to get their gas, and now they’re trying to diversify. So is it present an opportunity for a country like India? I will say yes, because, first, we’ll get some higher price. Second, we will get scale, what we want to do. And slowly, with time, we can expand the hydrogen into different sectors where we want to achieve and decarbonize some of the sectors. So I will not say that we should directly and we are not doing. We are building this, by piece by piece in our ports, creating trying to create the hydrogen hubs. But, ultimately, you know, it’s similar is the is the story when we did the solar where unless Secchi came into picture, scaling, and bringing down the cost was very, very important and very difficult. And once Secchi is there, you club the demand, and that’s how the prices went down. So similar thing, we have to see that there is a export market potential which can exist, which can put India in the energy space and, parallelly, also decarbonizing our own hard to abate sector as some of the priority sectors.

Sandeep Pai: Ok. Wonderful. Thank you for explaining. That is actually a great segue for really getting into the meat of sort of, like, the policy landscape and and, like, how much of this is you know, if I were to ask you this question about solar in 2009, you would this is kind of hopefully, that kind of question. Like, we have these targets, but what’s happening on the ground? Is this going to repeat a solar story or this is I mean, obviously, I don’t know if anything can repeat a solar story, but is it going to be a different story? So what is the policy landscape on hydrogen and what is the ground reality of that?

Vijay Shekhawat: So like I said, we have to look at two, three important aspects. One is, the scale of ambition. We are very ambitious. And if you include the associated one twenty five gigawatt, what is needed to get to this hydrogen number, it’s very, very, important because that one twenty five gigawatt is needed to power the electrolysis. We are talking about the massive transformation in the energy transition and the energy ecosystem for the country. Now if you will ask me practically as a friend, and if you will say, is it too ambitious? Perhaps I will say yes. But, again, ambition is essential. And when we are serious about industrial decarbonization and long term energy security, because you can’t say that, that number is something and that we have seen in solar. Like, we started with, you know the gigawatt number, then we moved to 100, and now we are talking about 500. So the real challenge is translating ambition into bankable projects. Is there a possibility we can do some of the viable business models and the on ground infrastructure which is needed? I agree. At the ground reality level, India is still in the pilot and the earlier demo stages. We have a number of private and public companies, whether you talk about NTPC, IOCL. They’re coming up with tenders. They know that their refineries are using gray hydrogen. Is it a possibility to bring some of these initial tenders? Electrolyzer manufacturing is also ramping up. We are still reliant on lot of imports, you know, about cells and, anode and cathode and all the membranes and separators. We are importing most of the components, water availability, all the strategic locations. So these are, like, different pieces which we are trying to address. I know we are still at a macro level. There is a level where you talk about macro and micro implementation. We have not reached the micro implementation level. But definitely, when you look at the policy landscape, we have a national green hydrogen mission which talks about the PLI scheme. The winners are announced. There is a site program which talks about ammonia, green hydrogen, number of, and the scale what we do. We have the renewable purchase obligation. Different states are coming up with the hydrogen policy, UP, and recently, Punjab, Maharashtra, all are coming up with it. And, also, it is very, very important that the kind of policies which are we are making so this is not something which anyone has done that. So there is lot of learning in this policy making, lot of learning in what is needed, how we can move. So step by step, the government is trying to address those concerns of, industry. And because what hydrogen has done, it has put different countries and the world at the same platform. Right? So you can’t say that I have excess of oil and natural resources and gas, so I will play on the pricing part. Yes. There are certain advantages what India has in terms of renewable energy, solar, and the cost we have. But this is something we have done, we have learned over the time, and that’s how we are currently reaping the benefits of what we have done in the last, decade. So it’s very, very important that the policy should move in the right direction, and it is moving. Definitely, there are teething issues always across sectors. We see that on standardization, certifications, even the definition of hydrogen, what we have, what Europe has, what other countries have, what Japan has. So we have to see that how we can address some of these bottlenecks, but we are moving in the right direction. Yeah.

Sandeep Pai: Right. One question I have before we get into sort of, like, challenge opportunity stuff. One question I have is, like, while at the federal level, at the national level, there is obviously a lot happening. You started talking a little bit about Uttar Pradesh and other states. Do you wanna explain a little bit what action is happening at the state level? What kind of landscape do you see there?

Vijay Shekhawat: I think there are, I think there, across, different, states, what we have seen is states are coming up with, so with their own green hydrogen policy. And it is very, very important that there are certain incentives which central government at the ministry level they have given, whether you talk about ISDS charges and whatever incentive the government is giving. But then, for states, one of the mandate is also to attract investment. That’s the first point. Because as a state, I have to bring industry to my industrial zone or my state. Second important is I have to provide employment. I have to bring jobs to my state. Okay? And the third, very, very important, is I have to align the state’s interest along with where the central and the national policy is moving. Because then it is very easy I’ll not say easy, but, it helps any state to progress on those particular areas when they align their themselves with the central government and the and the and the moment where, the central policy or the national policies are moving. So a lot of states are coming up with their own, state policy, green hydrogen policy, where they’re also providing the additional inputs so that more industries can come. Like, you look at Odisha, where we have a lot of incentives announced, and it has its strategic advantage also because of the port. And you can, you can do all those, hydrogen hubs and export opportunities. And also very, very important that along with the highest tax charges, they’re also giving rebates on the electricity prices, the tax benefits, import, exports, and there are a number of things. But ultimately, for a state, for a subnational level, it brings four things which are very, very critical. One, it brings investment to the state. It bring jobs to the state. It it aligns your thought process in terms of the national policy where it is moving. And, definitely, at some point, every state has to put their decarbonization plan. We are not currently, we are in the process, but, under NDCs, everyone has to put that how they are actually moving, how they are actually, achieving their climate targets, and that’s very, very important. So that’s how we see that there is I will not say competition, but it’s a healthy way of moving in a direction where the world is moving, countries planning to move in terms of all the three aspects, which I mentioned on affordability, energy security, and availability, to, fuel which is cleaner and more sustainable.

Sandeep Pai: Excellent. I have to ask you this question. It’s a standard social science question, but what are the key challenges that you see? I mean, is it the price currently? Is it misalignment of different policies, not lack of interest? What are some key challenges that you’re seeing right now?

Vijay Shekhawat: I think we we all know about the challenges, what what this sector face, and and it’s not no different from any of the the new, initiatives or new sectors what we’re and it’s really important to get to the heart, of where we are right now with the green hydrogen. So, let’s start with the challenges. Okay. Definitely, the first is high cost of production. What we have seen in solar also because it’s very expensive compared to gray, what we are currently using, or even to blue. And the cost of electrolyzers, renewable power, storage infrastructure, it has to come down because that’s how you see. So that’s definitely, the cost. Electrolyzer manufacturing and supply chains, like I said that we have to scale it to, megawatt level and then gigawatt level because unless you do that, it’s very, very difficult, and we are actually importing all the all the key components. So we have to scale up and in this nice, the manufacturing, reducing the dependence on very few limited global suppliers. You know, there are a handful of companies who are in this space. Definitely, the infrastructure gap, whether pipelines, storage, port facilities, I think storage, ammonia exports. I think everything also need a massive investments, which is, important challenge. We talk about, but we are not currently doing a lot, in that is water because electrolysis needs pure water. Okay? And some of the region where you find renewable energy solar, but you don’t find water. Right? State of Rajasthan, suppose, for example. So you have to see that, how you are actually looking at some of these solutions, where are you getting from water, and, even, a simple aspect of desalination. I think we are talking about desalination for so long, but have we done some good projects in India? I don’t think so, or even I’m not aware about. Have we achieved that skill which is needed on desalination of water and get that water for some of these new projects which we are talking? I I’m not sure. Definitely. So that’s some of the challenges. But, it’s not only about the challenges. There are opportunities like I mentioned. You have hard to abate sectors. Green hydrogen is the only viable solution. It can put you and it definitely can put you in the global export leadership program, opportunity and definitely the innovation, the localization, the job creation, which is near. Policy leverage, yes. There are, different incentives. What but it is it is a complex space, and it is one of the most transformative opportunity from, I think, in in this generation, what the last one have seen in from coal to oil. We are looking at from oil to, different sources, and it will be a foundation for greener, more resilient and and, a a greener future, you can say.  Yeah. 

Sandeep Pai: Let’s go down the road of cost. Right? Right now it’s it’s expensive, green hydrogen in particular, but some people are saying, some experts are saying that, you know, green hydrogen costs could come down to dollar 1 per kg. Right now, it’s it’s quite high and not feasible. And I think to do specifically, you know, you’ve worked with PPAs, you worked on the costing of things. Like, what should be done to bring that cost down? I mean, you you have pointed to some of the things, but if you go at a more specific project level, like, how do we bring down the cost to $1?

Vijay Shekhawat: I think it’s the most critical point in the hydrogen discussion is the cost. Okay? And it’s very, very important because, on cost curve, the cost of green hydrogen currently ranges between 3 to $6, 7 dollar, 8 dollar, depending on what country you’re talking about. And it also depend on the renewable energy prices, the electrolyzer efficiency, and the scale at what scale you are actually planning. So that and you must have seen the hydrogen shot which talks about $1 by in a decade. So it is definitely ambitious, but not out of reach. And some of the major segments and major factors which are there in the cost, which will play a very, very important critical role is, like I said, the cheaper renewable power because we have to see the solar and wind tariffs in India are already down. The hybrid and around the clock renewable supply also is something which will bring the hydrogen cost down. It will take some time, and, because renewable energy is a major component what we are talking about in the cost. Second, definitely, our electrolyzer cost because global electrolyzer prices are expected, as per different reports, will go down 60 to 70% by 2030. That’s the expectation. It’s like if you want the cost to go down, you have to go on scale. Right? So you have to scale these projects, bring the economies of scale, get some operational experiences. Because currently, the data which we have is only on pilot projects or six months or ten months or a year. Right? But we do not have data of a long term project of which is longer than one year or two year. Right? So once we have those data, we started coming. So it will bring a lot of operational efficiencies also into the project, which will definitely, we see that it will help us to build the entire ecosystem, which is near, to get to the number, and it is still very, very difficult to get to that number. But this is on the cost front. Now renewable energy, electrolysis, economies of scale, learning graphs. But then other aspect is that where the policy is moving in terms of incentives, PLIs, and I think that will also very, very helpful in terms of bringing the cost down. So I will not say that, it  will not happen. And still we are, like, five, six years, to 2030. But, the way we are moving, it has slowed down in the last six months. I agree to that point, and there are obvious reasons because of certain stops in some certain funding and there are forms and others. But there are certain part of the of the world, and continents who are still, believing in the hydrogen story because, they know and they understood that they have to diversify their energy resources to get to the energy security portion. So I think because it’s not only about cost, there are a lot of other factors who are involved and aligned to it. It has to scale up, and there are a number of companies who have started moving to, from a megawatt to gigawatt scale or a large megawatt scale project. And we can discuss, in our conversation, that there are certain projects which we see started moving to the, to the beyond the feasibility, stage to to the next level and the commissioning stage. Yeah.

Sandeep Pai: Right. So it’s, again, like, I like that you just lead me to my next question that is running in my mind. So my next question is let’s, I will divide that question into two parts. Which are some major players that are moving and embracing the hydrogen sort of, you know, work? And if you have anything to say about if you wanna divide them into, like, public sector versus private and where do you see most interest, that would be interesting. Because if you remember from the solar story, and you know this very well, NTPC played a role. It’s still playing a big role, while others private companies have also come in and come in a really big way. So do you see any early trends in terms of public sector versus private sector and where is which companies are really going, big on this?

Vijay Shekhawat: So I think I will say that it’s globally, things are moving for a lot of, and and you you know the name all the energy giants, are are moving in this direction, whether, the legacy energy giants, and we see lot of new, new age innovators also in this space, whether Shell, BP, Total, all are coming up with with their large scale projects. And, and then there are some of the players like ThyssenKrupp, Nucerra, Nel Hydrogen, the large electrolyzer manufacturers who are actually, putting up these scaled projects, in a modular way and try to see that how we can achieve to that scale. Some of the projects like Shelley’s doing one in, in Rotterdam where which is a 300 megawatt project. I think it will finish complete, by this year end or early next year. It is in use. All the details are there. It’s a 300 megawatt big project, which will, put the first, megawatt scale at that, number, in the world. Then we have Nio, which is, again, not, on megawatt. It’s on gigawatt scale. And, Air Products and Thyssen Group, Newsera, they’re doing this project, where it’s a 2.2 gigawatt, a large very, very large project, all the green usage. Another very, very important project which we recently we have seen, in news is, the Stegra project, which is, in Hato Bay sector, which is seven forty, megawatt, again, done by, ThyssenKrupp on seven forty megawatt large scale, hard to abate sectors and try to see that, how we can get to some of these, these core sectors where we want to decarbonize. So that’s the global players who are operating, and then there are a number of other players, like, in different technology, like PEM, Plug Power, VC, and then OEM is there. In terms of, domestic players, I think you all the big names are there. You’ll see Reliance, announcing $75,000,000,000, for the green hydrogen, and they have plans to come up with cheapest green hydrogen by 2030, which is, there, in there. We have Adani, which talks about one MMT by 2030, which is almost one fifth of what the country is trying to do by 2030. And then, like you said, that there are private players, but, currently, the role is also heavily dependent on our oil majors and some of these large public sector undertakings. And NDBC definitely is a front runner. Indian Oil is a front runner. We see there is a 300 megawatt project of Indian Oil currently at Biden. It’s in the process. ONGC also, they have, come up with their own subsidiary by the name of ONGC Green. Again, planning to come up with some of the large scale, megawatt scale projects and move from, like, a kilowatt or one kilowatt or a two kilowatt or three kilowatt pilot scaling, understanding, testing to some of these large scale projects. So it is very, very important to, because all these large public sector utilities have done, their understanding about hydrogen, and tried this pilot through different funding mechanisms, which they internally have, most of these public sector utilities. And, they funded projects. They tried, and now they have data. They are still in the process of understanding which technology is good for you in terms of the next aspect, whether safety, priorities, and scaling data. But, yes, the projects are coming, and we are seeing a race to localize electrolyzer manufacturing by all these companies, and India is definitely positioning itself for even the green hydrogen hubs. We have three ports announced, with green hydrogen corridors in Kandla, Pardeep, and to the core in BC. So it is scaling up, but it is just that we have to see that how we can move to the next level of some of these large hundred plus, 200 plus, 300 plus megawatt project. And once we have those project on ground, I think scaling that to the next level and bringing down the cost, will be a matter of time.

Sandeep Pai: Excellent. Thank you for explaining all that. Honestly, I have one last question, which is, like, if you become I mean, in some ways you do in your day job, but if you really have the ears of the powers to be, at the central level, what are, like, two or three things you want to do? This is sort of my last question in the short term to help achieve that scale, like, you know, what are a few things you would really want to see change quickly?

Vijay Shekhawat: I think these are some things which keep we keep on requesting to in different forums to the ministry, to the government. So it’s not something which is new, but, I agree with you that we have to see and think big because, India truly has a very, very unique set of advantages of which when it comes to adopting the green hydrogen. Okay? And the the scale at which we are growing, the economic growth, the energy security, the sustainability goals, and when you break it down to renewable energy potential, that kind of industrialization which we want to do in our country, and the export, potential, the the the trade which we are doing, the the the engagements which we are doing with different countries, the the free trade agreements which we are doing, at an international level, and the transition which we want to do in across sectors with the transportation, industries, our fertilizers, it puts us in a very, very unique situation to support this transition, which will be backed up by our expertise experience, which we had in the renewable energy sector. In terms of ask, I think it’s very, very, I think everyone knows that. So to scale up, we need demand. And the demand will come initially from the mandates. Okay? So unless you have mandates, unless you have binding of take agreements, it’s difficult for, to get money for the projects. That’s fun. And the FID decisions will not happen still you have a binding of take agreement. So which is very, very crucial. So you should have mandates, in some of these, key sectors which I mentioned. It should come. I agree there. These are sectors which are very, very touchy, fertilizers and others, and you can’t, at one go, increase the prices. And if you have to even, subsidize and which we are already doing subsidizing this sector, subsidizing to that extent is very, very difficult. It will put a hole in government’s pocket. So we have to see that how we can actually balance these two and get to the number what we want to achieve in some of these initial wins in some of these sectors, and then scaling up it once we have more projects which have, which reach the FID stage, where the projects move from a pilot and a demo stage to actually, implementation stage, and then we actually start reaping the benefits of some of these projects. I think, offtake demand binding agreement, and then, parallelly, there are a lot of things which will come like standardization certifications and other safety transportation, refueling stations. So there are a number of things which we have to do. But, initially, as an investor, I will see that where are the binding agreements, where which sector the demands and mandates are coming. So it’s very, very important.Sandeeep Pai: Amazing. Thank you so much, Vijay. This has been a really fantastic conversation. And thank you. Really appreciate just taking your time and explaining everything. I always learn from you a lot. So really appreciate it.

Vijay Shekhawat: No no It’s a learning in two ways. I think it’s always, I think it’s always great to speak with you, and the way with you try to explain those things in in even in this discussion for the for the viewers, for the listeners, I think it’s important, to make this subject interesting. That’s one. And to make it simple, that’s very, very important because, the podcast will be not only will be and for the people who are in the sector, there are number of people who want to understand this sector, who see that there is a potential. And some a lot of times, I personally feel that if I would have that knowledge on lot of other, segments of the sectors only not only in the policy, I should have, been into a renewable sector with my own companies killing up that to to the next level. So, it’s always good to divide that topic into different subtopics and explain it in a simpler way. So that’s thank you so much. That’s very, very interesting and lovely speaking with you. Great.

Sandeep Pai: Thank you.

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