Mr. Vivekanand, Director (Finance, Taxation & Legal), FIPI began the session with the opening remarks. He said that with need to combat climate change, the oil and gas industry today, is transitioning towards more clean energy initiatives and opportunities. He highlighted India’s remarkable achievement of achieving more than 50 per cent of its total installed electricity generation capacity from non-fossil fuel sources as of June 30, 2025—five years ahead of the 2030 target set under its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets to the Paris Agreement. This shows India’s commitment towards environmental sustainability and climate change. He then talked about the importance of National Green Hydrogen Mission announced by Honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in making India a hub for production and export of green hydrogen. He said such government initiatives will help India achieve net-zero carbon neutrality by 2070 and also ensure energy security.

Mr. Mohit Sharma, Director, Policy, Incentives and Tax Regulatory practice of KPMG India, talked about the objective of GHCSI and said that the scheme is designed to facilitate the development of a green hydrogen market in India, ensuring that hydrogen produced is genuinely green and contributes to reducing carbon emissions via verification by a BEE Accredited Carbon Verification (ACV) agency. He mentioned that the scheme provides guidelines for calculation of GHG emission intensity during green hydrogen production; defines monitoring requirements for green hydrogen production and emissions & designates a nodal authority for issuing certification for green hydrogen. He then talked about the key stakeholders which includes-

• Implementing Agency (IA): nodal authority to manage certifications, compliance verification based on reports and address challenges during scheme implementation.


• Technical Committee: To conduct periodic review to ensure scheme align with industry standards


• Green Hydrogen Producers: Producers to adhere to guidelines and ensure compliance via certification portal.


• ACV Agency: Conduct verification and submit detailed verification report to IA.

Further, he highlighted the key elements of GHSCI – which includes electrolysis and conversion of biomass pathways for green hydrogen production. Further the scope for emission calculation includes green hydrogen production, compression, purification & onsite storage of green hydrogen irrespective of the chosen production pathway. Any activity related to transport & storage of green hydrogen outside plant, conversion into H2 carriers, & reconversions for further utility purposes, will not be considered for computing emissions.

He mentioned that the scheme defines threshold to ensure that only significant emission sources are considered in the GHG emission calculations for certification purposes (material threshold). The hydrogen standard was prescribed at a benchmark rate of 2 kg of carbon dioxide emission for per kilogram of hydrogen produced (2.0 kg Co2 eq/ kg H2). Therefore, the materiality will be considered in 2 factors, firstly, for individual sources, an emission source is material or important if it contributes 1% or more of total emissions. Secondly, all immaterial sources combined must be less than 5% of the total emissions.

Ms. Anvesha Thakker, Partner & National Lead, Clean Energies, KPMG India highlighted that the scheme specifies the applicability of renewable energy (RE) for certification purposes including sources and claims of RE.  She talked about the RE consideration that is to be excluded from emissions computation which includes- electricity generated from RE sources, RE stored in energy storage system & RE banked with the grid. She also said that if there are renewable energy certificates or carbon credits that are being claimed, then that is not excluded & electricity to that extent will be considered in the emissions calculation. She also highlighted that a valid power purchase agreement should be present to cover the entire electricity that is required by the green hydrogen plant.

Another critical component of GHSCI is the Green Hydrogen Emission Calculation Methodology that estimates the GHG emission intensity for hydrogen production. She mentioned that the scheme talks in detail about the emission calculation methodology for both production pathways- electrolysis as well as conversion of biomass pathways.

 Regarding certification, she said that an independent process is conducted by an Accredited Carbon Verification (ACV) agency for assessment of GHG emission intensity during the evaluation cycle, which is a time of one financial year during which the quantified GHG emissions are deemed representative. The certificates vary from being Concept certificates- that are applied any time after the approval of design/concept/ FEED; to Facility level certificates- that are mandatory certificate & certifies the GH production facility. There can also be Provisional Certificate – that are auto generated after submission of production data in the GH certification portal & can be applied for minimum 1 month or more and up to 11 months. The Final certificate is issued after end of every financial year and is given to GH producer or facility who has received any incentive/subsidy, sell/use green hydrogen in India, received any type of exemption, or domestic sale & the balance exported.

Finally, she pointed out that the ACV agency follows the Green Hydrogen Monitoring plan framework of GHCI defined by MNRE for verification of GHG emissions. Post verification, the ACV agency submits the report via the Green Hydrogen Certification Portal, detailing emissions, emission intensity, and compliance. The Certificate generally include project details, production year, emission intensity only if the average emission meets ≤ 2.0 kg CO2eq/kg H2.

The presentation was followed by ‘Panel Discussion on Implementation challenges of the GHCSI and learnings from the global comparative landscape. The panel comprised of Mr. Rafael Velazquez Monroy, Tetra Tech, Mr. Nishaanth Balashanmugam, GH2 India & Ms. Apurba Mitra, Partner, KPMG India. The panel discussion was moderated by Ms. Anvesha Thakkar, Partner, KPMG.

Mr. Nishaanth Balashanmugam, GH2 India appreciated the recently launched GHSCI by the government and said that India has one of the lowest thresholds of 2 kg of carbon dioxide emission for per kilogram of hydrogen produced (2.0 kg Co2 eq./ kg H2) (by using RE). Further he said that BEE is a renowned ACV agency that has undertaken accreditation of ~200 different agencies in case of managing energy transition in India. Therefore, compared to global peers, India is in right direction in meeting its objective of energy security using renewable sources of energy.

Mr. Rafael Velazquez Monroy, Tetra Tech mentioned that Indian and EU have different approaches in case of renewable energy matching, especially when considering the 2030 timelines. The EU's system, is more established and integrated with its broader energy market, while India's system is still developing. He further said that India's approach to measuring GHG emissions differs from other countries, particularly regarding upstream and downstream emissions. While India focuses on direct emissions, nations like Japan and the EU are increasingly using a full lifecycle analysis, which includes emissions from production and disposal. This difference in methodology adds complexity to international comparisons and climate change mitigation efforts. However, he mentioned with the current threshold limit and materiality standards included in the scheme, India has a great opportunity to lead in the certification standards around the world.

Ms. Apurba Mitra, Partner, KPMG said that GHSCI is a step in the right direction as it ensures to bring in transparency and trust among green hydrogen producers. India’s scheme on green hydrogen is balanced as compared to nations like EU and Japan, due to various factors for instance- boundary limit which includes water treatment, electrolysis, gas purification, compression, on-site storage, while for EU, it includes, beyond this on-site storage, transport to the 1st delivery point conversion etc. She also mentioned that India faces the challenge of not including upstream & downstream emissions in the full life cycle analysis of emissions which may undermine the accuracy related to certification process. 

The panel discussion was concluded with a detailed analysis on the implementation challenges related to GHCSI and the useful learnings India can draw from the global landscape. All the panellists had the consensus that despite challenges, India has a very strong, science-based threshold for production emissions which aligns to the international benchmarks and with the evolving market scenario, it will be able to achieve its goal of 5 MMT of green hydrogen by 2030.

The presentations were followed by conducting a Q&A session wherein various queries posted by our participants were well addressed by the panellists.

Lastly, DLN Sastri, Director (Oil Refining & Marketing), FIPI in his vote of thanks, emphasized the key importance of green hydrogen in India’s journey towards attainment of energy security & sustainability. He thanked the panellists for providing an international perspective on implementing green hydrogen certification in India and highlighting various challenges that India’s needs to overcome for successful deployment of green hydrogen in India’s energy sector. He complimented the KPMG team for giving insight on GHSCI along with its modalities from the point of view of a green energy producer. He thanked the KPMG and FIPI team who worked hard to make this event successful. He also thanked the participants for their active and interactive participation during the event.

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