Hydrogen-natural gas blends in pipelines: A review of challenges and opportunities for India

Hydrogen blending with natural gas offers a promising way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through existing pipeline systems, advancing India's shift towards a low-carbon energy system. Including hydrogen in natural gas pipelines offers an approach for long-term emissions reduction while accelerating market development of hydrogen technologies, including electrolysers. The current development of this technique has reached an affordable stage that enables its application at a large scale through existing pipeline infrastructure. According to scientific studies, blending Hydrogen with natural gas substantially cuts down carbon dioxide emissions. Regular blending of hydrogen with natural gas reduces CO 2 emissions and can cut down emissions by 11.11% at a 20% hydrogen blend fraction under the specific combustion conditions. The review evaluates different worldwide techniques for blending hydrogen and natural gas. A thorough analysis explores the economic feasibility of hydrogen blending opportunities in India. The present study includes a detailed exploration of natural gas‑hydrogen blends, which explains both the advantages and technical problems and the broad implementation aspects. The current study focuses on hydrogen blending in already established natural gas networks and global case studies with economic aspects, as well as the current Indian scenario.