India allocates over $4bn for net zero goals in budget

The Indian government has allocated 350bn rupees ($4.28bn) for its 2070 net zero goal in its latest budget, covering areas like hydrogen, renewables and green mobility.

The allocation for the April 2023-March 2024 fiscal year is a priority capital investment towards India's energy transition, net zero objectives and energy security needs, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in parliament on 1 February.

Sitharaman reiterated the government's aim to have green hydrogen production of 5mn t/yr by 2030, at an initial outlay of Rs197bn. The government had approved a national green hydrogen mission on 4 January, aiming to reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels and turn India into a global hydrogen hub. The government later detailed plans for incentivising domestic hydrogen production and electrolyser manufacturing in a policy document on 13 January.

In the renewable segment, the government will support the setting up of 4,000MWh of battery energy storage and will come up with a detailed framework for the development of "pumped storage" projects in the country, Sitharaman said, but did not give more details.

The federal government has also promised support of Rs83bn out of a total investment of Rs207bn for an inter-state transmission system for evacuation and grid integration of 13GW of renewable energy from Ladakh, where state-controlled power company NTPC's renewables subsidiary NTPC REL plans to set up India's first green hydrogen mobility project.

The government has increased its allocation for faster adoption and manufacturing of electric vehicles to Rs51.7bn for 2023-24, a 78pc rise from Rs28.97bn in the previous fiscal year, in a bid to boost green mobility in the country. The finance minister also announced duty exemptions on imports of capital goods and machinery required for lithium-ion cells for batteries used in electric vehicles. The move could make electric vehicles cheaper in India and in turn boost their uptake.

The government also earmarked Rs100bn towards setting up of 200 compressed biogas (CBG) plants and 300 community and cluster-based biogas plants under its Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan (Gobar-Dhan) scheme.

India had previously set a target to roll out 5,000 CBG production plants to reduce its reliance on energy imports and control pollution. It currently has 31 CBG plants in operation and about 100 retail outlets selling biogas.

"In due course, a 5pc CBG mandate will be introduced for all organisations marketing natural and biogas," Sitharaman said in her budget speech.

India imports about half of its natural gas requirements and is aiming to replace some of these imports with domestic biogas.

State-controlled firms Gail, IOC, HPCL and BPCL are some of the companies with existing plans for CBG plants.

By Rituparna Ghosh