New Delhi: India’s abundant sunshine and growing renewable-energy capacity could become the foundation of a new export industry, with green hydrogen offering a way to convert renewable electricity into globally traded industrial products.
That is the central argument made by Krishan Rattan, founding partner of Terra Invest, in a recent commentary on India’s emerging green-hydrogen economy. Rattan argues that India’s renewable resources need not be limited to supplying domestic electricity—they could increasingly be transformed into products for international markets.
Turning Sunshine Into Exportable Products
Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be used directly or converted into products that are easier to transport internationally.
Rattan points to ammonia and hydrogen-based iron as examples of products in which renewable energy can effectively be embedded. In this model, India would not necessarily have to export electricity or hydrogen itself. Instead, it could export industrial goods whose production relies heavily on renewable energy.
The concept effectively turns India’s solar and wind resources into an industrial input that can be sold to customers around the world.
National Green Hydrogen Mission
A key part of India’s strategy is the National Green Hydrogen Mission, which has an initial government outlay of ₹19,744 crore. According to Rattan’s commentary, ₹17,490 crore of this allocation is directed toward the Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) programme.
The programme supports both green-hydrogen production and domestic electrolyser manufacturing. The combination is important because developing demand for hydrogen while simultaneously building the equipment manufacturing ecosystem could help create a more durable domestic industry.
India’s approach therefore goes beyond producing hydrogen alone. It also aims to establish capabilities across the wider value chain, including technology, equipment manufacturing, engineering and industrial applications.
Start With Existing Industrial Demand
Rattan argues that India should initially concentrate on industries that already consume large quantities of hydrogen.
Refineries and chemical industries are among the established users and could provide a more immediate market for green hydrogen than sectors where hydrogen applications are still developing. The approach is also consistent with the broader observation that early hydrogen demand is likely to emerge from existing industrial applications.
Building a dependable domestic customer base could help producers develop operating experience and bring down costs before the industry expands into newer applications and international markets.
Building Industrial Clusters
Another element of the proposed strategy is the development of concentrated industrial clusters.
Instead of building isolated hydrogen projects, clusters could bring together renewable-energy producers, electrolyser manufacturers, engineering companies, hydrogen users and export infrastructure.
Such concentration could allow Indian companies to gain experience from one project and apply that knowledge to subsequent developments. Over time, this could create specialised engineering and manufacturing capabilities that can themselves become exportable.
The Gulf Could Become a Strategic Partner
The Gulf region could also play an important role in India’s green-hydrogen ambitions.
The region offers ports, industrial demand, capital and growing interest in renewable energy and clean fuels. These characteristics could create opportunities for Indian companies to participate in projects linking renewable-energy production, hydrogen-based manufacturing and international trade.
For India, partnerships with Gulf investors and industrial companies could therefore extend beyond financing and into technology, infrastructure and access to overseas markets.
From Renewable Energy to Industrial Exports
The larger opportunity is to move beyond thinking of renewable energy simply as a source of electricity.
Solar and wind power can produce hydrogen, while hydrogen can become an input for ammonia, steel and other industrial products. Those products can then be transported to markets where companies are seeking to reduce the carbon intensity of their supply chains.
This creates a potential chain:
Sun and wind → Renewable electricity → Green hydrogen → Industrial products → Global exports
Under this model, India’s competitive advantage would not come only from having large renewable resources. It would also depend on its ability to build the manufacturing, engineering and industrial capabilities needed to convert those resources into commercially competitive products.
Challenges Ahead
Turning the opportunity into a large export industry will depend on several factors, including the cost of renewable electricity, electrolyser efficiency, hydrogen transport and storage, infrastructure investment and international demand.
India will also need reliable standards for certifying the carbon intensity of hydrogen and hydrogen-derived products. Export markets are increasingly developing their own rules governing what qualifies as low-carbon or renewable production.
The economics will ultimately determine how quickly green hydrogen can move from government-supported projects to large-scale commercial deployment.
India’s Potential Green-Hydrogen Advantage
India has significant solar and wind resources and a large industrial base. Combining those advantages with domestic manufacturing and engineering capabilities could create opportunities extending beyond energy generation.
Rattan’s central proposition is therefore broader than simply producing green hydrogen: India could export the industrial value created by its renewable resources, along with the technology and expertise developed to produce it.
If that ecosystem develops successfully, the phrase “exporting sunshine” could come to describe an industrial model in which India’s renewable resources power products consumed far beyond its borders.
The views regarding India’s green-hydrogen export opportunity are attributed to Krishan Rattan and Terra Invest; the commercial potential will depend on technology costs, infrastructure, policy and international market conditions.
