From CNG To Hydrogen, Delhi’s Journey Towards Becoming City With Clean Air
New Delhi: On Tuesday, Delhi will become the first city in the country to roll out buses run on hydrogen-enriched CNG (HCNG), a fuel cleaner than CNG. However, HCNG is only an “interim” technology and the aim is to finally have hydrogen-run buses in the capital. A four-tonne-per-day compact reformer-based HCNG production plant will be inaugurated at the Rajghat-I bus depot of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) on Tuesday by Union minister for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan and Delhi transport minister Kailash Gahlot. From Tuesday itself, 50 buses running on HCNG will hit the capital’s roads. The buses will be run for six months as part of a pilot project. After the trial period, a detailed performance report will be compiled incorporating the fuel economy and the emissions data of the trial buses run with CNG and HCNG fuel mixtures. The report will be submitted to the Supreme Court and Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority. The apex court had earlier suggested that Delhi could “leapfrog” from the CNG-run to the Hydrogen-run buses instead of procuring electric buses as a solution for Delhi-NCR’s poor air quality. While the technology will take some time to appear in the capital, HCNG will be a step in that direction, even as Delhi government plans to gradually replace its fleet of CNG-run public transport buses with electric buses. The hydrogen fuel cell technology is one of the most efficient and only produces water and heat instead of emissions, making it the cleanest. These buses use hydrogen fuel cells that function like a battery but do not need to be charged. The buses have been developed by Tata Motors and Indian Space Research Organisation, but are not easily available in the market yet. While a source in Delhi government said the possibilities were being explored, HCNG would help the city achieve reduction in emissions. It can be used in engines of the existing public transport buses in Delhi without any major modification. Also, refuelling of HCNG blends in vehicles can be achieved with minimum modifications in the CNG infrastructure. The apex court had said hydrogen buses were running successfully in other countries and their procurement might not be a problem as the Tata group has started manufacturing these vehicles in India. Delhi government officials, however, said creating a fleet of purely hydrogen-run buses would take some time while it just needs to modify existing CNG-run buses for adopting HCNG. Delhi government is also looking at inducting 2,000 electric buses in Delhi’s public transport fleet by the end of 2021. In August, transport minister Gahlot had spoken to R K Singh, Union minister of state (independent charge) for power and new and renewable energy via videoconferencing about installation of charging infrastructure in Delhi-NCR as part of the recently launched electric vehicle policy of the state government. After the meeting, Gahlot said Singh had assured to consider subsidies for 1,000 electric buses in the city under the Centre’s Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) Scheme II, which had a Rs 10,000-crore subsidy outlay. Delhi government plans to induct 1,000 electric buses but their delivery schedule got hampered due the Covid19 outbreak. DTC also plans to induct 1,000 electric buses in its fleet and in a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership under the build-ownoperate-transfer (BOOT) model for the corporation, it is going to induct 300 electric buses by selecting an operator for procurement, operation and maintenance of these buses in an 11-year contract. The company will be paid operating cost per kilometre under the operating expenses (OPEX) model. Though DTC had received bids, the tender is yet to be awarded