In a significant stride towards decarbonising India’s fertiliser industry, the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has invited bids for the annual offtake of 724,000 tonnes of green ammonia—marking one of the country’s most ambitious moves yet under the National Green Hydrogen Mission.

The tender aims to supply green ammonia to 13 fertiliser plants across the country, aligning closely with India’s broader push to replace fossil-based hydrogen with cleaner alternatives. The initiative falls under the Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) scheme, a central pillar of India’s green hydrogen roadmap.

SECI, a Navratna PSU under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, will act as the aggregator and anchor buyer, entering into long-term offtake agreements with successful bidders. The 10-year contracts are designed to de-risk investments and provide price certainty to producers, a critical requirement in scaling up early-stage green hydrogen infrastructure, reported ET EnergyWorld.

To sweeten the deal for developers, the government is extending Production Linked Incentives (PLI) of ₹8.82/kg in the first year, tapering to ₹5.30/kg by the third year, with a total financial outlay of ₹1,533.4 crore. The contracts will be backed by a Payment Security Mechanism (PSM) to assure timely payments to producers—an important move given fertiliser firms’ historically inconsistent payment cycles.

India’s fertiliser sector currently consumes 17–19 million tonnes of ammonia annually, over half of which is derived from hydrogen produced using imported natural gas. The SECI-led green ammonia initiative is thus being positioned as both a climate-forward measure and a strategic hedge against global gas price volatility.

The auction process will follow SECI’s e-reverse bidding format, designed to foster competitive price discovery and bring down procurement costs over time.

From an emissions standpoint, the shift is dramatic. Green hydrogen, produced via electrolysis using renewable energy, emits less than 2 kg of CO₂ per kilogram. That’s a fraction of the 10–12 kg of CO₂ released during the production of conventional grey hydrogen which is dependent on fossil fuels.

As global momentum around green hydrogen builds, India is staking a claim as a serious player—not just in terms of technology adoption, but also in creating reliable domestic demand. SECI’s tender could prove to be a pivotal enabler in building a robust green hydrogen economy from the demand side out.

Source:

SECI launches tender for the offtake of green ammonia - ET EnergyWorld