Hydrogen Economy Regulatory Roadmap: An India Perspective

The Story That Was

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It was in the 1950’s, that the process to harmonise technical regulations on vehicles and automotive components was initiated by the United Nations Economic Commission of Europe better known as the UN ECE. This led to the formation of the UNECE World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicles Regulations Working Party 29 (WP 29).

India being a key global automotive player, both in terms of hometown industry, a huge market herself and a key exporter, it was important to harmonise the local regulations in line with the global standards and regulations. Hence India joined the UNECE 1998 agreement in April 2006.?

National Standing Committee on WP.29 matters was established under the Chairmanship of the Joint Secretary, MoSRT&H. This committee establishes national policy and guidelines on harmonization of automotive regulations. With ARAI's key position as an autonomous technical institute offering homologation / type approval service to the Indian as well as overseas auto industry, Technical Secretariat to WP.29 was entrusted to ARAI in the year 2003.

Having signed the UNECE 1998 agreement India is committed to participate in formulation of Global Technical Regulations. The views of Indian auto industry as well as test agencies are tabled to the respective group framing the regulations and standards.

One of the most important parts of automotive regulation which we brought in, India as a country and as a responsible nation are the emission regulations. The first emission regulations came into effect in India in 1991.

In 1999, the Supreme Court mandated that India 2000 norms (equivalent to Euro I) be implemented by 1999 and Euro II in NCR by April 2000. Subsequently Unleaded petrol was introduced, and catalytic convertors were made mandatory.?

Later, based on the Dr Mashelkar committee’s recommendations, the Euro based emission norms came up which were being implemented in a phased manner along with fuel with the required technical specifications to meet the emission norms.

The step change happened in April 2020 when India leapfrogged from BS IV to BS VI and with RDE??norms with E20 fuels in April 2023 thereby catching up with Europe in emission regulations.

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The Story That will be

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India’s national Green Hydrogen Mission aims to put India on the world map as a leader the hydrogen space.

Now, this is a completely different game. The challenges that need addressing are enormous. Unfavourable cost economics, supply challenges and costly infrastructure being some of them. The world is working on these challengers, and so is India.

One of the biggest challenges is lack of harmonized standard.

Unlike in the case of emission regulations, where India was following Europe, now India is a position where she has to play a major role in the creation of these standards. India must leverage her G20 presidency to advance her hydrogen ambitions and must become a part, participate and driver in the formulation of the regulations and standards of the hydrogen ecosystem the hydrogen value chain, carbon content certification, covering production, storage, transportation and consumption.

Hydrogen has a big role to play in limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. And, there is not a lot of time in our hands. Considering the complexity and the vastness of the ecosystem, and the large number of stakeholders involved. the intergovernmental and geopolitical complexities and implications, the formation of standards and regulations is a very complex task.

A lot of work is being done by the government, regulatory agencies, private organizations, and NGO’s for bringing together the various stakeholders and making working groups and committees.

To start with, there need to be an analysis on the various activities going on across the world in various countries on hydrogen standardisation.

The priorities and commitments of the nation must be clearly spelt, considering the complete hydrogen value chain.?

The requirements, ideas and needs of standardisation coming in from various quarters and stakeholders and initiatives must be consolidated and streamlined.?

And, most importantly there must be a timeline and plan for the entire process.?

One huge challenge is that, with the hydrogen ecosystem is evolving very rapidly with new and complex technologies coming in every other day and with various technologies at different TRL’s, the standardization process and regulatory drafting’s becomes even more complicated.

Standards and regulations need to be developed on time at the same time must be aligned with the development of technologies.?

The scope for the formation of regulation must align to our national policies and commitments, India as a nation, to the international community and address specifically to the targeted sectors like industry, mobility and transport.

The topics or areas that needs standardization or regulatory control need to be identified.

As the hydrogen ecosystem is very vast, different working groups and committees need to be set up based on topics. Topics can be clustered, and timelines prepared for working groups. Clusters like hydrogen production, energy and power generation, mobility and so on.

Now, if we consider hydrogen production, then we need to include electrolyser, SMR, pyrolysis, electricity grid interfaces, hydrogen purity definitions and standards, selection and compatibility of materials and Power to X. Standards and regulations must cover all these aspects.

And there are topics like carbon intensity categorisation of hydrogen and limits. Definition of green hydrogen. This need to be defined to provide incentives to those producing or using low carbon intensity hydrogen. This is important in the event of hydrogen export to other countries. It is estimated that a third of hydrogen will be moved (in a variety of forms) around the world by ship. For this to happen, we need to have international certification schemes. We need to align with international standards and regulations or create standards that are internationally recognised, that allow hydrogen to move around, and with transparency for buyers at destination markets to be sure of what they are buying. ?

It is important to collaborate with committees like ISO/TC 197, IEC/TC 105, IEC/TC 108, UNECE GRPE and so on. Wherever required, we need to amend our standards or adopt standards. For example, in India, we have gaseous hydrogen storage defines standards for cylinder sizes only up to 400 litres. This can be amended. Or for hydrogen pipelines, India does not have any standard. We can consider adopting ASME or CGA standards for this.

There has been a lot of progress, with bodies and organizations like SIAM, CEEW, IHA and regulatory agencies like ARAI along with various working groups created by various ministries. In the next five years, all standards should be in place. There is a need to prioritize, as to which standards and regulations must be brought in first considering our national priorities and interests and the interests of the planet.

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