New Delhi, April 18 (IANS) Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA) has opened an office in GIFT City at Gandhinagar which will specialise in providing debt options denominated in foreign currencies to facilitate natural hedging and significantly reduce the financing costs for green hydrogen and renewable energy manufacturing projects, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said on Thursday.

The strategic initiative which would contribute to the country's journey towards a greener future was highlighted by IREDA chairman and managing director (CMD) Pradip Kumar Das at a panel discussion on ‘Future Growth Opportunities for Long Duration Energy Storage’, held at the World Future Energy Summit 2024 in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

The IREDA CMD emphasised the critical role that energy storage will play in achieving the National Green Hydrogen Mission’s ambitious target of producing over 5 million metric tons of hydrogen per annum by 2030.

The CMD emphasised the need to enhance research and development efforts to reduce cost and improve the performance of energy storage solutions. It was necessary to implement policies that strengthen the supply chain network, and providing competitive and tailored financial solutions will encourage investment in energy storage projects, he added.

India has taken active steps in this direction, which include the formulation of a storage requirement roadmap up to 2047, technology-agnostic storage tenders, and supportive government interventions for battery manufacturing and pumped storage hydropower projects. The Central Electricity Authority of India projects a storage requirement of nearly 400 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2030-32, with an estimated investment exceeding Rs 3.5 lakh crore.