A background note can be accessed here: OECD Flags Safety Risks in Expanding Hydrogen and Ammonia Supply Chains
The OECD report warns that the rapid expansion of hydrogen and ammonia supply chains is creating new safety challenges across production, storage, transport, and end-use applications. How should policymakers balance the urgency of scaling low-carbon energy systems with the need to develop robust safety governance frameworks?
India's National Green Hydrogen Mission reflects an important strategic shift towards building a competitive low-carbon hydrogen economy. However, the pace of deployment should not outstrip the evolution of safety governance. Emerging technologies often expand faster than the institutions responsible for licensing, inspection and enforcement, creating periods of regulatory lag during which oversight capacity remains limited. For hydrogen and ammonia value chains, this gap is particularly significant given their distinct chemical and operational hazards.
Safety should therefore be treated as enabling infrastructure for the hydrogen economy rather than as a compliance requirement attached to individual projects. This requires integrating risk assessment, land use planning, emergency preparedness and lifecycle safety reviews into project planning and approval, while ensuring effective coordination across institutions such as PESO, MNRE, environmental regulators and state authorities. As technologies mature, regulation must remain adaptive through periodic review, systematic incident reporting and continuous institutional learning. Ultimately, robust safety governance sustains investment, maintains public confidence and ensures a credible long-term energy transition.
The report highlights the diversity of hydrogen and ammonia applications, each presenting distinct risk profiles and operational requirements. To what extent should safety regulation rely on sector-specific standards as opposed to integrated regulatory frameworks?
The diversity of hydrogen and ammonia applications means that safety regulation cannot rely on a single technical framework. Hydrogen presents challenges related to flammability, leakage and material compatibility, whereas ammonia poses significant toxicity and environmental risks. These differences justify technology-specific engineering and operational standards that reflect the characteristics of individual applications.
However, technical differentiation should not lead to fragmented governance. Hydrogen value chains increasingly span electricity, industry, transport, ports and international trade, bringing multiple regulators into a common project lifecycle. While technical standards should remain sector-specific, governance should be integrated to ensure coherent oversight, minimise regulatory duplication and provide greater certainty for project developers. A coordinated institutional framework across ministries and regulatory agencies would enable consistency in approvals while preserving the flexibility needed to address application-specific risks. Aligning this governance architecture with evolving international standards would further facilitate cross-border trade, improve investor confidence and position India as a credible participant in emerging global hydrogen markets.
The OECD analysis emphasises that hydrogen and ammonia markets are likely to become increasingly globalised, with growing cross-border movement of fuels, intermediates, and infrastructure investments. How prepared are countries such as India to manage the safety implications of integrating into emerging international hydrogen supply chains?
India is well positioned to become a major producer and exporter of green hydrogen and ammonia under the National Green Hydrogen Mission. However, participation in global hydrogen markets will increasingly depend on both production costs and the credibility of domestic safety and regulatory institutions. As international supply chains expand, importing countries are likely to expect comparable levels of safety assurance across the entire value chain rather than only at the point of production.
This requires broadening the policy focus beyond production incentives towards building the institutional capabilities that support safe deployment. Port infrastructure, storage facilities, transport networks and emergency response systems will require specialised protocols, while regulators, plant operators and first responders will need dedicated training to manage risks that differ from conventional energy systems. Equally important is aligning domestic regulations with internationally recognised safety standards to facilitate market access and reduce compliance uncertainty. Viewed from this perspective, safety enhances resilience, lowers investment risk and strengthens India's long-term competitiveness in the emerging global hydrogen economy.