India's Department of Fertilizers is moving forward with a plan to produce green urea by replacing conventional grey ammonia with green ammonia. A key part of the roadmap is a differential subsidy mechanism where SECI will buy green ammonia at market price and sell it to fertilizer companies at grey ammonia rates, with the government covering the difference. The plan also includes a 10-year incentive period for producers and a 7.24 lakh MT annual green ammonia procurement target under the National Green Hydrogen Mission. The technical foundation is a 150 TPD pilot plant at Pudimadaka that integrates carbon capture with electrolysis. This is significant because urea production requires CO2 as a feedstock, and India could source that from power plants and steel mills. The roadmap also taps into a Rs 19,744 crore MNRE allocation for green energy infrastructure. The challenge remains cost: green ammonia is still more expensive than fossil-based ammonia, and the subsidy mechanism will determine whether this scales beyond pilot projects.
