India’s green hydrogen certificate is only as credible as its power records

India’s green hydrogen certification portal will create economic value if it lets industrial buyers verify the emissions they are paying to avoid. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy launched the portal on 17 June under the Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme of India. An administrative portal can make applications and compliance easier. What makes the resulting certificate worth paying for is the ability to trace the electricity used, apply a consistent emissions boundary and prevent two users from claiming the same renewable generation. Without those conditions, a simpler process could make it easier to sell a label while leaving buyers uncertain about the underlying product. MNRE’s green hydrogen certification launch · India’s 2023 green hydrogen standard

An emissions standard makes a difficult purchase comparable

Hydrogen looks the same at the point of use regardless of how it was produced. A refinery buying it can specify purity, pressure and delivery terms and test them on arrival. It cannot inspect the delivered molecule to find out which generator supplied the electrolyser. India’s 2023 standard sets a threshold of two kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen, averaged over 12 months. For electrolysis, the accounting boundary covers operations including water treatment, electrolysis, purification, drying and compression. The boundary is relevant to procurement because a buyer should be able to compare a certified supplier with another supplier on a consistent basis. India’s 2023 green hydrogen standard

The economic problem is asymmetric information. A producer knows its operating hours and power purchases in greater detail than a buyer, while the buyer cannot independently monitor each plant at reasonable cost. A credible certificate reduces that cost and allows bidders to compete on both price and emissions. It also changes what happens after contracts are signed. If power costs rise, a producer might be tempted to switch operating hours or change its source of electricity. Clear rules for periodic verification and correction of material errors make the emissions promise enforceable over the contract term.

Electricity drives both cost and emissions

Consider an illustrative electrolyser that uses 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of hydrogen. At ₹3 per kilowatt-hour, electricity alone costs ₹150 per kilogram. At ₹5, it costs ₹250. These are assumed power prices and an assumed electricity requirement. Neither figure includes capital recovery, water, maintenance or delivery to the buyer. A producer offered cheap electricity only during solar hours also needs to weigh the lower power price against fewer operating hours over which to recover the cost of its equipment. A bid built on a low tariff and a high annual utilisation rate needs to show that both assumptions can hold at the same site.

The same illustration shows the importance of the power record. At 50 kilowatt-hours per kilogram, power with an attributed emissions intensity of 0.04 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour contributes two kilograms of emissions per kilogram of hydrogen. It would use up the entire threshold before emissions from any other covered inputs are added. The 0.04 figure is a calculated break-even under the stated assumption. It is neither a national grid emissions factor nor a separate legal limit on electricity. The producer’s full compliance calculation has to use the applicable accounting rules and emissions boundary. India’s 2023 green hydrogen standard

The comparison should account for the gap between contracting for renewable power and physically drawing electricity at a particular time. An electrolyser that runs more hours can make better use of its equipment. If the extra hours rely on more emissions-intensive generation, the climate benefit can shrink. More granular verification can expose that gap, while imposing costs for metering, data reconciliation and balancing. Procurement can require bidders to show how much renewable supply they can demonstrate at the intended operating profile and what a tighter matching requirement would do to the delivered price. That information would help decide how far to go beyond the national minimum in a specific contract.

Refinery contracts are a practical demand test

The ministry says contracts have been awarded to supply 30,000 tonnes a year to four refiners, IOCL, BPCL, HPCL and NRL. At the illustrative electricity requirement above, supplying that amount would use 1.5 terawatt-hours a year if all contracted tonnes were delivered by electrolysis at that efficiency. The volume equals 0.6 per cent of the mission’s 2030 annual production capacity target of five million tonnes. These comparisons show the scale of a relatively concrete demand commitment. An award is different from a commissioned plant or an audited record of deliveries. MNRE’s green hydrogen certification launch · Cabinet approval of the National Green Hydrogen Mission

Refineries are useful early buyers because they already use hydrogen. A contract can replace part of an existing input and compare the certified product with the plant’s incumbent supply. The buyer needs terms for missed deliveries, quality, emissions verification and any continued reliance on its existing hydrogen plant. The same firm can serve as a buyer for a long-term contract and retain its conventional supply for continuity. The avoided emissions then depend on how much conventional production actually falls when the green volume arrives. A producer’s certificate and a buyer’s displacement calculation answer different parts of the same investment question. IEA Global Hydrogen Review 2025 on demand

The allocation of risk will also affect who bids. A buyer that can cancel without compensating the supplier after the plant has been built may receive few credible offers or pay a higher premium. A producer that receives a fixed payment regardless of whether the buyer needs the hydrogen can leave a public refiner paying for unused capacity. A minimum volume commitment tied to verified availability, with separately priced additional volumes, would let the two sides share that risk. Publishing utilisation and payment data would show whether a low winning bid remains inexpensive once the contract is used.

The original mission approval put the programme’s initial outlay at ₹19,744 crore. To judge public support for an individual project, compare the net subsidy with verified incremental emissions reductions over the supported period. For illustration, if a buyer pays a green premium of ₹60 per kilogram and independently verifies a reduction of eight kilograms of emissions per kilogram substituted, the premium works out to ₹7,500 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent. These are hypothetical inputs, not an estimate of a refinery contract or a recommendation on the right subsidy. The calculation shows how a plausible product premium can have very different public value depending on the incumbent fuel, actual utilisation and verified displacement. Cabinet approval of the National Green Hydrogen Mission

How much verification is worth paying for

There is a reasonable case for avoiding overly demanding reporting requirements at the start. Smaller suppliers may face significant fixed costs to build audit systems, and a standard that requires very granular power procurement can raise prices and slow the first round of investment. The cost is worth bearing where the evidence materially changes the emissions claim or makes contracts more financeable. Where simpler records can independently establish the same result, a more elaborate process could consume resources while adding little assurance. Common measurement rules and audit trails would make it easier for suppliers to provide credible evidence without each buyer demanding an entirely different reporting system.

The test is the evidence from actual deliveries. Publish volumes contracted, commissioned, delivered and certified as separate quantities. Report enough about the verification process for buyers to assess repeatability, including how corrected certificates and overlapping claims are handled. At refinery level, track independently verified conventional hydrogen displacement, delivered price and the utilisation of the new supply. If projects repeatedly deliver contracted tonnes with a documented emissions reduction and the premium narrows across successive procurements, certification is supporting a market. If awards rise while deliveries and verified displacement lag, the first question should be which constraint is binding, whether it is power supply, financing, operations or the buyer’s willingness to pay. MNRE’s green hydrogen certification launch · IEA Global Hydrogen Review 2025 on demand