The government of India through the Ministry of Power recently promulgated the ‘Revised Consolidated Guidelines & Standards for Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles (EV)’. Among many issues, these guidelines have fixed the timelines for providing grid connectivity for the installation of public charging stations, which is the right step for ease of setting up this critical infrastructure.
The state electricity regulatory commissions will have to enforce these guidelines i.e. One charging station every 25 km on both sides of highways and roads and One fast-charging station every 100 km on highways/roads for long-range/heavy-duty EVs.
The necessity for EV charging investment and deployment is irrefutable. But the demand and other uncertainties combine to make public charging infrastructure risky and an unattractive investment. So In order to achieve scale, debt financing is critical, and the industry must gradually reduce dependence on policy-driven subsidies.
There are significant commercial, structural and operational levers to reduce latency, enhance revenues and cut costs. Smart charging services, advertisement, retail colocation and network interoperability are levers for revenue enhancement.
Thus in this context, the guidelines promote revenue sharing model for setting up public charging stations and Land available with the Government/Public entities can be monetised for installation of Public Charging Stations on a revenue-sharing basis at a fixed rate of Re 1 / kWh (used for charging).
The upcoming budget can also revert ways for promoting the ease of charging EVs with low-cost renewable energy (RE) systems.
The guidelines notified by the Ministry of Power
have taken the first step in this direction for public charging stations by allowing open access, stipulating the timelines for open access applications and applicable open access charges also access to cheaper finance can also be made available for a certain period till this becomes self-sustaining and even larger-sized commercial vehicles are also equally polluting and should be shifted to electric as soon as possible. Capital subsidies could be provided for these as well.
Further, while incentives have been provided for charging infrastructure, more incentives can also be provided for battery swapping.
Budget proposing the promotion of green hydrogen
The supply chain of GH2 is complex like any other fossil fuel commodity and includes production from renewable energy sources, storage and delivery (if the production and demand centres are not co-located). Beyond this, many potential end-use applications may need technology and infrastructure to support energy transformations such as H2 to electricity and vice versa, H2 to ammonia, H2 to methanol, etc. GH2 production, storage, and supply need to meet the purity, pressure, and volume requirements of specific industries and applications.
Achieving parity with grey hydrogen and natural gas prices will determine the speed and scale of GH2 adoption as it requires boosting demand for GH2 in a phased manner thereby achieving economies of scale across the supply chain, indigenisation of supply chain, and technology improvement to enhance efficiencies of GH2 production and transformations with earth-abundant raw materials.
Much of the debate on reducing the cost of GH2 is focused on production, particularly electrolyser systems and renewable energy supply.
The launch of the National Hydrogen Mission (NHM) and various GH2 pilot projects initiated by public sector undertakings are all steps in the right direction.
However, the primary focus of the budget should be towards boosting R&D investment with public-private partnerships (PPP) and grand challenges to demonstrate efficiently & cost-effective GH2 electrolysers, storage and delivery solutions using earth-abundant electrocatalysts and materials.
Budget proposals for other clean energy technologies
Solar industry is still dependent on a large number of imports for various equipment and hence still attract a heavy price making our indigenous modules uncompetitive. The budget could look at measures to reduce the cost of imported equipment for promoting the solar industry.
MSMEs are a very significant segments that can play a huge role in EV, batteries, and distributed renewables. The potential of this segment must be harnessed in full and for this purpose, certain additional benefits could be extended such as access to concessional finance or even special financing products are given the risk perception, access to common manufacturing facilities and testing centers, etc.
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