India will place retaliatory barriers on renewable hydrogen trade: Union minister RK Singh

India will set up barriers in the green hydrogen trade in response to other nations imposing restrictions, said Power and Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh. As one of the world's biggest emitters of climate-warming gases, India is betting on green hydrogen to help cut its emissions and to reach its target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. "Some countries are putting barriers on green hydrogen (trade and technology). If they are putting up barriers, we will also put up barriers; then you will be losing out on our market," Singh said at the International Conference on Green Hydrogen.

India is already in conversations with Germany over conditions in its hydrogen purchase tender with the European Union, which members of Indian industry found restrictive, renewable energy secretary Bhupinder Singh Bhalla said last month. The tender, announced in December, has a condition stating that the distance between the hydrogen manufacturing plant and the green power plant should be 500 kilometers or less, an industry source at the conference.

Singh did not elaborate on what India's retaliatory barriers may be. He told the conference that Indian companies have already set plans to manufacture 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen. Last year, New Delhi approved a 174.9 billion rupees incentive plan for the fuel, which is made using renewable energy and without producing greenhouse gases. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target to produce 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. Earlier this year, Singh said that huge subsidies announced by some developed countries for their green hydrogen sectors can distort trade and is in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) norms.