Green hydrogen is still an expensive bet. The $105 million that a group of international investors just pumped into Hygenco Green Energies is a wager that the price will come down — and fast enough to matter.
The money comes from the International Finance Corporation, Siemens Financial Services, and the Fullerton Carbon Action Fund. It is not charity. These are institutions that expect returns. They see India as a place where green hydrogen can actually become a business, not just a pilot project.
Hygenco is already a going concern. It has projects that produce and supply green hydrogen to industrial customers. In 2022, it raised about $25 million from the Neev II Fund, managed by SBI Ventures. That earlier money helped it get started. This new $105 million is meant to scale up — multiple projects across India, more supply of clean fuels to industries that want to ditch fossil fuels.
The key word is “industries.” Green hydrogen is not for everything. It is for the hard stuff. Steel mills. Chemical plants. Fertilizer makers. Heavy manufacturing. These sectors need high-temperature heat that electricity cannot easily provide. You cannot just plug a blast furnace into a solar panel. But you can feed it green hydrogen instead of coal or natural gas.
That is the logic behind the investment. The investors are betting that Indian industry will need a lot of green hydrogen, and that Hygenco can deliver it at a price companies will pay.
The National Green Hydrogen Mission is the government’s part of the equation. It sets targets and offers some support. But the real work is happening in companies like Hygenco, where engineers have to figure out how to make the stuff cheaply and reliably. The mission creates a framework. The money and the technology create the product.
Green hydrogen is made by splitting water using renewable electricity. No carbon emissions. But the electricity has to be cheap, and the electrolyzers have to be efficient. India has good solar resources. That helps. The cost of electrolyzers is falling globally. That helps too.
Still, the numbers are sobering. Green hydrogen today costs two to three times as much as hydrogen made from natural gas. The gap is closing, but slowly. The $105 million will help Hygenco build plants that produce at scale, which should bring costs down. That is the theory.
Hygenco also plans to produce green hydrogen derivatives, including green ammonia. Ammonia is easier to ship than hydrogen. It can be used as a fuel for ships or as a feedstock for fertilizers. That opens up export markets. India could become a supplier of green ammonia to countries that lack cheap renewable energy.
The investment is a signal. Global capital is willing to bet on India’s green hydrogen sector. But it is a bet on a specific company with a track record, not on the whole industry. Hygenco has to deliver. If it does, more money will follow. If it stumbles, the sector will feel the chill.
For now, the mood is optimistic. The investors are putting real money behind a technology that is still maturing. They are not waiting for perfection. They are betting that the trajectory is right. India’s industrial emissions are huge. Green hydrogen offers a path to cutting them without shutting down factories. That is the prize.
The next few years will show whether the bet pays off. Hygenco has the funding. It has customers. It has a government mission behind it. What it does not have is margin for error. Green hydrogen is a hard business. The money buys time and capacity, but not certainty.
