New Delhi, India has plans to install a hydrogen-fueling station that will dispense both pure hydrogen and a natural gas (CNG) / Hydrogen blend (HCNG). The HCNG blend will be comprised of 10-percent hydrogen and will require no major modifications to the CNG engines that are currently running.
An added benefit of the HCNG blend is that it will cut nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions by 30 – 40 percent from vehicles running straight CNG. The hydrogen fueling station is the starting point of India’s plan to put 1 million hydrogen vehicles on the roads by 2020.
New Delhi already has the largest fleet of CNG vehicles anywhere in the country, so converting to HCNG in order to cut down on pollution makes sense in this city. New Delhi is also home to a couple of hydrogen-burning three-wheel demonstration vehicles crafted by Bajaj Auto Limited of Pune, India and Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, Michigan.
India is currently looking at long-term solutions for the generation of hydrogen from renewable resources such as water, biomass or by using wind energy (including high altitude wind turbines) in order to fuel its growing fleet of hydrogen vehicles.