RMI India: Grantee Spotlight (Q3 2026)

The Giving Green Fund is awarding a restricted grant to RMI, India to build the enabling market architecture and infrastructure for green ammonia production in India. RMI India is an independent research organization that works with central ministries, state governments, and industry on India's clean energy and industrial transition.

RMI India's work falls within our philanthropic strategy of decarbonizing ammonia (discussed in our Industry sector report). 

Last updated: October 2026

What Is RMI India?

Incorporated in 2019, RMI India is an independent think-and-do tank based in New Delhi and part of the global RMI network. It focuses on developing and scaling market-based solutions to support India’s clean energy transition, combining research and analysis with direct engagement with government, industry, and other stakeholders to develop and support the implementation of policy and market solutions. Its approach emphasizes moving from analysis to real-world implementation by partnering to develop solutions that can be tested, demonstrated, and scaled. 

RMI India’s portfolio currently includes work to transform the power and grid systems, decarbonize heavy industry, scale electric mobility, improve building efficiency, mobilize climate finance, and advance efficient cooling. Its industrial decarbonization program focuses on hard-to-abate sectors of iron and steel, cement, and ammonia. 

What Are We Funding, and How Could It Help Address Climate Change?

India's green hydrogen and green ammonia sectors face system-level implementation barriers that can slow the commercialization and scaling of early projects. These barriers include fragmented demand, uncertainty around shared infrastructure, cross-border certification requirements, and the difficulty of coordinating producers, buyers, infrastructure providers, and government agencies. Addressing these barriers requires coordinated action across the value chain rather than interventions focused on individual projects. This grant will support RMI India with the three interconnected workstreams:

• India-European Union (EU) green ammonia corridor: developing the commercial pathway for green ammonia trade between India and Europe by assessing market demand, infrastructure requirements, commercial models, and the India-EU value proposition. RMI India would work closely with Indian producers and European buyers to aggregate demand and advance commercial commitments while engaging with industry and government stakeholders to address certification, regulatory, infrastructural, and investment barriers.
• Domestic green hydrogen clusters: assessing industrial demand, grid capacity, and infrastructure readiness in Odisha; co-developing a Green Hydrogen Cluster Roadmap for Paradip, Gopalpur, Angul, and Kalinganagar; and commissioning pre-engineering studies for shared infrastructure and support coordination among hydrogen and ammonia producers and domestic industrial consumers.
• Coalition and market coordination: convening industry and government stakeholders through working groups focused on demand aggregation, infrastructure and investment planning, and commercial models, coordinating actions across the value chain and reducing risks for early projects.

These workstreams aim to address the demand- and infrastructure-related challenges facing India's green ammonia sector. Aggregated demand from Europe will give developers greater offtake certainty and support investment in shared port infrastructure, while certification work will help Indian producers access export markets willing to pay a green premium. The cluster work would also allow asset sharing to serve both export and domestic markets. Higher production volumes could reduce the delivered cost of green ammonia in India, making it more competitive with conventionally produced ammonia and enabling its use in fertilizer and steel production, where it could reduce emissions from carbon-intensive hydrogen and ammonia production.

Why Do We Think RMI India Will Use This Funding Well?

RMI India has worked on India’s hydrogen transition for five years and has relevant experience across policy, infrastructure, and end-use sectors. RMI India has worked with central and state governments on the potential, opportunities, and system-wide adoption of green hydrogen and its derivatives. RMI India supports the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways in implementing its vision for green shipping and trade corridors. This experience is complemented by RMI India’s work on decarbonization roadmaps for the fertilizer and steel sectors, two important potential users of green hydrogen and ammonia.

RMI India has also already established a platform for the proposed India-EU corridor work. It has convened more than 20 stakeholders across developers, ports, and European offtakers and has working relationships with central ministries, the Odisha government, and stakeholders in Europe. The pre-feasibility study is already underway, providing a foundation for the proposed demand aggregation, infrastructure, and certification work.

Cross-border green ammonia trade continues to attract growing commercial interest, but individual market participants are unlikely to fund the coordination required to aggregate demand and develop shared infrastructure. Philanthropic funders have also been cautious about supporting green ammonia-related work in India, largely because projects in the United States and Europe have struggled to achieve cost parity and commercial scale. These challenges, however, are not directly transferable to India, where abundant low-cost renewable energy and declining project costs have brought green ammonia production at or near cost competitiveness under favorable conditions. The extrapolation of Western market experiences has therefore left this area relatively neglected, despite the potential for philanthropic support to accelerate India's progress toward sustained cost competitiveness. We think RMI India’s track record in market shaping and architecture positions it well to mobilize state governments, ports, developers, and offtakers to bring projects closer to implementation. RMI India’s implementation support for green ammonia projects at the state level is also complemented by the Mission Possible Partnership’s India program, the Industry Transition Accelerator, which provides strategic support to the broader green ammonia sector.

We publish grant spotlights to offer transparency to Giving Green Fund donors and resources for those interested in the impact strategies each grant supports. Giving Green believes our Top Climate Nonprofits have the greatest impact potential for large, unrestricted gifts. For several reasons, we also disburse and recommend grants to other organizations surfaced through our research process for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. 

This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes. 

RMI India is registered as a Section 8 nonprofit in India. RMI is a registered U.S. nonprofit with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. As Giving Green is itself a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we are only offering an opinion on RMI’s charitable activities under its 501(c)(3) status.