Union Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs Manohar Lal on Saturday flagged off a fleet of green hydrogen buses of NTPC at Leh in the presence of senior officials of the Ministry of Power, Leh Administration, and NTPC on Saturday.

After the flag-off, the Union Minister travelled 12 km in one of the H2 buses from the H2 filling station to the Leh airport.

The Union Minister congratulated NTPC for its unique contribution to the energy security and decarbonisation efforts of the country through the adoption of hydrogen technologies at various fronts like mobility, blending with PNG, green methanol, and its overall thrust on RE.

The Green Hydrogen Mobility Project at Leh comprises an in-situ 1.7 MW solar plant, a green hydrogen filling station of capacity 80 kg/day, and 5 hydrogen intra-city buses. Each bus can cover 300 km per single filling of hydrogen of 25 kg.

It is also the world's highest altitude (3650 m MSL) Green Hydrogen Mobility Project that is designed to operate in low-density air and sub-zero temperatures and can fill hydrogen at 350 bar pressure.

The station shall mitigate the carbon emissions of approx. 350 MT/year and contribute 230 MT/year of pure oxygen into the atmosphere, which is equal to planting of approx. 13,000 trees.

The potential of green hydrogen mobility solutions in Ladakh is very strong considering the high solar irradiance with low temperature, a sweet spot for producing solar power and green hydrogen efficiently. Production and utilisation of this green fuel at these locations would avoid fossil fuel logistics and make the locations self-sufficient in terms of energy requirements.

NTPC is setting up more hydrogen mobility projects across India in addition to the deployment of various green hydrogen technologies, rapidly scaling up RE capacity, including the setting up of a hydrogen hub in Andhra Pradesh.