The National Green Hydrogen Mission was approved by the Indian government, and incentives of Rs 17,490 crore were set aside for the creation and manufacture of electrolyzers.
However, despite the fact that the specifics of how these incentives will be applied have not yet been made public, a number of private sector firms have already made proposals to invest heavily in green hydrogen.
When Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman first spoke about India’s plan to harness green hydrogen in her 2021 budget speech, some of them made their objectives public as early as 2021. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had just announced the National Hydrogen Energy Mission in his Independence Day speech that year.
Here are the commitments made by companies to accelerate India’s green hydrogen initiative.
Adani Group
On June 14, 2022, Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL) declared that it had partnered with French company TotalEnergies SE to invest $50 billion over the ensuing ten years in India for the production of green hydrogen and the development of an ecosystem around it. ANIL plans to create a 1 million tonne annual capacity for manufacturing green hydrogen by the year 2030.
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 was signed in December 2022 by ANIL and Cavendish Renewable Technology (CRT), a hydrogen technology business with headquarters in Melbourne.
Reliance Industries Limited
On August 29, 2022, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced the company’s goal to transition from producing grey hydrogen to green hydrogen by 2025. The startup aims to lower the cost of creating green hydrogen to less than $1/kg by the end of this decade.
RIL is allegedly in advanced talks with Hinduja-owned truck and bus producer Ashok Leyland on the development and supply chain of hydrogen-powered engines. According to a January 5 Bloomberg article, Mukesh Ambani would be concentrating on RIL’s switch to green energy.
The 65-year-old will monitor plans, such as the creation of gigafactories and blue hydrogen stations, would examine acquiring opportunities, and is in talks with new investors, according to the persons who declined to be identified because the sensitive data is classified. Last year, Ambani declared his aim to spend $75 billion over the next 15 years on clean energy initiatives.
INDIAN OIL CORPORATION LTD.
IOCL wants to replace at least a tenth of the current fossil fuel-based hydrogen at its refineries with green hydrogen as part of a decarbonization push. This year, the business will also create a subsidiary to house its green energy businesses.
The PSU’s 2022 annual report states that the corporation is “moving into green hydrogen production” and that it plans to create 5 percent and 10 percent of its hydrogen in green form by 2027-28 and 2029-30, respectively. At its refineries in Panipat and Mathura, the largest oil corporation in the nation is beginning by building green hydrogen reactors.
For the designing, building, and installation of the electrolyzer and related components for the generation of green hydrogen at its installation in Manali, Chennai, Chennai Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of IOCL, also launched an EOI.
ONGC
The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of the Indian government and Greenko’s strategic alliance has committed to invest up to $6.2 billion in green hydrogen and renewable energy projects.
GRENKO-KEPPEL
India will start exporting green energy in 2025, with the first shipments going to a power plant there, according to a statement made by Greenko Group in October 2022 after the signing of an MoU with Singapore’s Keppel Infrastructure.
Through the MoU, the two firms would research the possibilities for green hydrogen in India. They hope to land a yearly contract of 250,000 tons to supply Singapore’s new Keppel 600Mw power plant. Greenko has made a number of investments, including a $5 billion investment in India’s nationwide storage of green, carbon-free hydrogen energy.
GAIL Limited
GAIL announced on May 12, 2022, that it had received permission to construct one of India’s largest proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. The renewable energy-based project would be installed at the GAIL Vijaipur Complex in the Guna district of Madhya Pradesh.
The project is expected to produce roughly 4.3 MT of green hydrogen daily, according to the plan (approx. 10 MW capacity). By November 2023, it will be operational. In January 2022, GAIL started India’s groundbreaking endeavor to include hydrogen in the nation’s natural gas supply.
Bharati Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL)
BPCL will progressively erect a green hydrogen generation facility employing a 5 MW electrolyzer system as part of one of its city gas distribution projects. In June 2022, it invited proposals for the same.
In April 2022, BPCL and the government of Odisha signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding to examine the feasibility of developing, among other things, a renewable energy plant and a green hydrogen facility (both for local and export consumers).
Alkaline electrolyzer technology has been developed by the company and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for the generation of green hydrogen. It intends to enhance the manufacturing of electrolyzers for industrial applications, particularly in refineries.
NTPC Inc.
The largest energy producer in India, NTPC, intends to use about 5 GW of its estimated 60 GW for a sustainable portfolio by 2032. This amount would encourage the production of ammonium and green hydrogen.
The NTPC has started three hydrogen commercial pilot programs. One is an experimental project to combine renewable hydrogen and natural gas at its Kawas plant in Gujarat. The second is in Leh, where the company is building solar farms together with an environmentally friendly hydrogen filling station.
There will also be buses run on hydrogen-based fuel cells. The third is a test project to capture carbon dioxide and manufacture hydrogen at its Vindhyachal plant in Madhya Pradesh.
THE LARSEN & TOUBRO LTD.
At its AM Naik Heavy Engineering Complex in Hazira, Gujarat, engineering giant L&T constructed a green hydrogen plant in August 2022. The plant produces 45 kg of green hydrogen every day, all of which are used within the corporation’s Hazira manufacturing complex.
Additionally, a partnership between the company and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay is in place to pursue research and development in the green hydrogen value chain jointly. In January 2022, L&T and HydrogenPro AS, a Norwegian manufacturer and supplier of electrolyzer technology, will open a factory in India.
The memorandum of cooperation states that L&T and HydrogenPro will work to build a gigawatt-scale manufacturing facility for alkaline water electrolyzers using HydrogenPro technology. In December 2021, L&T entered into a partnership with Nasdaq-listed ReNew Power in order to jointly develop, own, conduct, and manage green hydrogen projects in India.
HPCL
The Vizag refinery of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL) would have a capacity of 24,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year after a 370-tonne-per-year green hydrogen plant is put into operation.
