Launch of India’s Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme (GHCI)

Union Minister Shri Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi formally launched the Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme of India, establishing the country’s first framework for certifying the origin and sustainability of green hydrogen. The GHCI leverages blockchain for real-time traceability and emissions accounting, and offers preferential incentives for MSMEs that achieve higher certification levels.

In his keynote, Shri Santosh Kumar Sarangi, Secretary, MNRE, emphasized the strategic role of MSMEs in achieving India’s 5 MMT hydrogen production target. He underscored their agility, innovation potential, and cost-competitiveness as key to localising supply chains and enabling a resilient green hydrogen economy.

Technology & Manufacturing: MSMEs in the Green Hydrogen Value Chain

Session 1, chaired by Prof. (Dr.) Chitra Rajagopal, spotlighted opportunities for MSMEs to manufacture electrolysers, pressure vessels, and balance-of-plant components. Experts from DRDO, H2E Power, Vision Mechatronics, Fraunhofer India, and the Ministry of MSME highlighted the need for OEM-MSME partnerships, shared testbeds and standardization platforms, international R&D collaborations for advanced manufacturing like laser welding and coatings.

Supply Chain Participation: Localisation, Exports & Clustering

Moderated by GH2 India’s Mr. Nishaanth Balashanmugam, Session 2 explored MSME participation across the green hydrogen supply chain, NTPC Green Energy and IEA emphasized localized vendor development, Speakers advocated for anchor demand aggregation, export facilitation, and regional industrial clusters, emphasis was placed on mapping MSME capabilities to international benchmarks, particularly from Indo-German partnerships

Biomass-to-Hydrogen: Unlocking Rural and Decentralized Pathways

Session 3, chaired by MNRE’s Dr. Sangita Kasture, showcased viable biomass-based hydrogen production technologies, companies like PRESPL and Grassroots Energy demonstrated pilot-ready decentralized systems, researchers from TERI and IISc called for stronger industry-academia partnerships, key asks included long-term offtake security and state-level facilitation

Financing the Green Hydrogen Transition

In Session 4, chaired by Mr. Moez Cherif of the World Bank, experts unpacked the financial tools necessary to scale the green hydrogen value chain, blended finance, bridge funding, and viability gap funding emerged as top priorities, institutions like KfW, IREDA, World Bank, and IIFCL shared upcoming instruments for de-risking investments and enabling bankable offtake agreements, the need for a hydrogen payment security mechanism and digitalized contracting frameworks was highlighted.

During the valedictory address, MNRE’s Shreyank Mauria reaffirmed the Ministry’s commitment to transforming the workshop’s insights into actionable interventions. He emphasized that with the right policy levers, financing mechanisms, and collaborative platforms, MSMEs can play a pivotal role in accelerating India’s green hydrogen ambitions.