Companies Who Have Pledged To Switch To India’s Green Hydrogen Mission
On January 4, the Indian government approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission and set aside incentives totaling Rs 17,490 crore for the production and manufacture of electrolyzers. However, a number of private sector conglomerates have already made pitches to go big on green hydrogen, even though specifics of how these incentives will be implemented have not yet been unveiled.
Some of them made their goals public as early as 2021 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the National Hydrogen Energy Mission in his Independence Day speech that year, and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman first discussed India’s plan to harness green hydrogen in her 2021 budget speech.
To begin with, green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis using renewable energy and is thus carbon-free. Through the use of an electric current, hydrogen is separated from oxygen in the water in this process. The color “green” is assigned to this form of hydrogen because electrolysis requires electricity from renewable sources, such as solar or wind. Moneycontrol examines the pledges made by businesses to quicken India’s green hydrogen effort.
Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL) announced on June 14, 2022, that it has collaborated with TotalEnergies SE of France to invest $50 billion over the following ten years in India for the production of green hydrogen and the creation of an ecosystem around it. Prior to 2030, ANIL wants to develop a 1 million tonne annual capacity for producing green hydrogen.
In December 2022, ANIL and Cavendish Renewable Technology (CRT), a hydrogen technology company with headquarters in Melbourne, entered into a development and licensing agreement for the mass production of alkaline electrolyzes, polymer exchange membranes (PEMs), anion exchange membranes (AEMs), and CRT’s cutting-edge “C-Cell” technology.
- Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani stated the company’s objective to switch from producing grey hydrogen to green hydrogen by 2025 on August 29, 2022. By the end of this decade, the company wants to bring the price of producing green hydrogen down to less than $1/kg.
Sources claim that RIL is in advanced discussions over the development and supply chain of hydrogen-powered engines with Hinduja-owned truck and bus manufacturer Ashok Leyland. On January 5, Bloomberg reported that Mukesh Ambani would be focusing on RIL’s transition to green energy.
According to the people who declined to be revealed since the sensitive data is confidential, the 65-year-old shall monitor plans, such as the development of gigafactories and blue hydrogen stations, would assess acquiring prospects, and is in negotiations with new investors. Ambani announced intentions to invest $75 billion in clean energy projects over the following 15 years last year.
- INDIAN OIL CORPORATION LTD (IOCL)
As part of a decarbonization effort, IOCL aims to replace at least a tenth of the present fossil fuel-based hydrogen at its refineries with green hydrogen. The company will also establish a subsidiary this year to house its green energy companies.
According to the PSU’s 2022 annual report, “the company is moving into green hydrogen production and is targeting 5 percent of the hydrogen it produces as green hydrogen by 2027-28 and 10 percent by 2029-30.” The biggest oil company in the country is starting by constructing green hydrogen reactors at its refineries in Panipat and Mathura.
A request for information (EOI) was also published by Chennai Petroleum Corporation, an IOCL subsidiary, for the designing, construction, and installation of the electrolyzer and related elements for the generation of green hydrogen at its installation in Manali, Chennai.
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ONGC
In July of 2022, the Indian government’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Greenko’s strategic partnership agreed to spend up to $6.2 billion on green hydrogen and renewable energy initiatives.
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GRENKO-KEPPEL AGREEMENT
With the signing of an MoU with Singapore’s Keppel Infrastructure, Greenko Group said in October 2022 that India will begin exporting green energy in 2025, with the first shipments going to a power plant there.
The two companies would examine the potential of green hydrogen in India through the MoU. They are aiming to secure a 250,000-tonne contract per year to supply Singapore’s new Keppel 600Mw power plant. Greenko has made a variety of investments, including $5 billion in the storage of green hydrogen energy that is carbon-free throughout India.
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GAIL India Limited
On May 12, 2022, GAIL declared that it had been given the go-ahead to build one of India’s biggest proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. The renewable energy-based project would be set up at GAIL’s Vijaipur Complex in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna district.
The plan calls for the project to produce about 4.3 MT of green hydrogen each day (approx. 10 MW capacity). It will be put into operation by November 2023. GAIL began India’s pioneering project to mix hydrogen into the natural gas supply in January 2022.
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Bharati Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)
As part of one of its city gas distribution projects, BPCL will gradually put up a green hydrogen production facility using a 5 MW electrolyzer system. It solicited bids for the same in June 2022.
In order to analyze the viability of establishing, among other things, a renewable energy plant and a green hydrogen plant (both for local and export clients), BPCL and the government of Odisha signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding in April 2022.
The business and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have worked together to develop alkaline electrolyzer technology for the production of green hydrogen. It plans to increase electrolyzer production for commercial use, particularly in refineries.
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NTPC Ltd
NTPC, India’s largest energy generator, plans to employ approximately 5 GW of its anticipated 60 GW for a sustainable portfolio by 2032. This sum would stimulate the synthesis of green hydrogen and ammonium.
Three hydrogen business pilot projects have been launched by NTPC. One is a trial project at its Kawas plant in Gujarat to mix renewable hydrogen and natural gas. The second is in Leh, where the business is constructing solar farms combined with a green hydrogen filling station.
Buses powered by hydrogen-based fuel cells will also be operated there. The third is a trial project at its Vindhyachal plant in Madhya Pradesh to produce hydrogen while also seizing carbon dioxide.
- LARSEN & TOUBRO LTD (L&T)
In August 2022, engineering powerhouse L&T opened a green hydrogen plant at its AM Naik Heavy Engineering Complex in Hazira, Gujarat. Daily output from the plant is 45 kg of green hydrogen, which is used only in the Hazira manufacturing complex of the corporation.
Additionally, the business and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have a contract in place for the cooperative pursuit of research and development in the green hydrogen value chain. L&T and HydrogenPro AS, a Norwegian producer and supplier of electrolyzer technology, agreed to establish a plant in India in January 2022.
According to the memorandum of agreement, L&T and HydrogenPro will try to establish an alkaline water electrolyzer manufacturing facility on the scale of a gigawatt using HydrogenPro technology. In order to jointly develop, own, conduct, and run green hydrogen projects in India, L&T partnered with Nasdaq-listed ReNew Power in December 2021.
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HPCL
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) hopes to commission a 370-tonne-a-year green hydrogen unit at its Vizag refinery, giving it a capacity of 24,000 tonnes of green hydrogen annually.
Edited by Prakriti Arora
