Heavy industries play a crucial role in the economic growth of India through their contribution towards meeting demand, including exports and GDP. Every functional unit of the production process related to hard-to-abate industries has to depend upon power sources for manufacturing the final product. The major power source for heavy industries namely power plants, iron and steel, cement, paper, and fertilizer are coal. During the process of energy conversion from coal through combustion, they produce a large amount of greenhouse gases. As production capacity is increased to meet the growing demand, it is essential to mitigate carbon emissions. There are many routes adopted by various sectors to decarbonize the production process. These include the use of alternative fuels, using the best available techniques, carbon capture utilization, and storage. Most of these techniques have shown positive impacts after implementation. In this study, the production process of each sector is analyzed to find the hotspots, the mitigation strategies followed by each industry, and mainly the use of green hydrogen as a power source. It elaborates on the routes of production of green hydrogen, the major challenges in the implementation part, the policy making of green hydrogen in India, its relationship to heavy industries, and how green hydrogen plays a role in net-zero emission goals. © 2024 American Chemical Society.
