Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, unveiled India’s first entirely indigenously manufactured Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus on Sunday (21 August).
The fuel cell, developed by KPIT-CSIR in Pune, uses hydrogen and air to generate energy to power the bus, with the only effluent being water. In comparison, a single diesel bus travelling long distances generates 100 tonnes of CO2 each year, and India has over a million of them.
Furthermore, because of the high efficiency of fuel cell vehicles and the high energy density of hydrogen, fuel cell trucks and buses have lower operational costs in rupees per kilometre than diesel-powered vehicles.
“Green hydrogen is an excellent clean energy vector that enables deep decarbonisation of difficult-to-abate emissions from the refining industry, fertiliser industry, steel industry, cement industry and also from the heavy commercial transportation sector,” stated the union minister.
“India can pole-vault from being net importer of fossil energy to becoming net exporter of clean hydrogen energy,” he added. Dr. Jitendra Singh stated that diesel-powered large commercial vehicles account for 12-14 percent of CO2 and particle emissions, which are decentralised and thus difficult to absorb.
According to the Minister, hydrogen-powered vehicles are a fantastic way to decrease on-road emissions from this industry. He also stated that India intends to expand interior rivers for freight and passenger travel. The Minister praised the collaborative development efforts of KPIT and CSIR-NCL, noting that Indian scientists and engineers are on par with the best in the world, but at a much lesser cost.