Hailing the ‘Hydrogen Mission’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged the industry to be ready for future fuels and green energy calling it the way forward for attaining self-sufficiency in terms of the country’s energy requirements.
Highlighting that India has already tested its first indigenously-developed hydrogen car, Modi added that the automotive industry in the country needs to be ready for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
India’s very first hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicle was tested in October last year by CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) and KPIT Technologies.
Hydrogen fuel cell technology uses chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen (from the air) to generate electrical energy, eliminating the use of fossil fuels.
CSIR and KPIT have developed a 10 kWe (Kilowatt-electric) automotive grade LT-PEMFC (low-temperature PEM fuel cell) stack based on CSIR’s know-how. The heart of the PEM fuel cell technology includes the membrane electrode assembly, which is wholly a CSIR know-how.
The trials were run on a battery-electric passenger car platform retrofitted with the fuel cell stack. However, it is expected that the technology is more suited for commercial vehicles (CV) such as buses and trucks. Battery electric buses/ trucks require a large battery to achieve the desired operating range.
