India's largest, state-owned refinery, Indian Oil Corporation, has been in talks with the state government of Kerala for setting up a hydrogen production unit at Kochi, to supply the gas to run buses from the Cochin Internationa Airport to the capital city of Trivandrum. The airport already is fully powered by solar, having set up 40 MW of solar capacity. Now, Kerala wants to be the pioneer to run fuel-cell powered buses and wants IOC to set up hydrogen production unit. This was revealed at a press conference in Chennai on Wednesday by IOC's Director (R&D), Dr SSV Ramakumar.
Following Kerala, the state governments of UP and Gujarat are also interested.For Uttar Pradesh, IOC will supply hydrogen from the Mathura refinery, where it is building a large-scale green hydrogen plant. Similarly for Gujarat, IOC has a refinery in Baroda; it might set up a green hydrogen plant there too.
Business Standard reports that IOC has also set a target of converting 10 per cent of its hydrogen usage at refineries to green sources soon. As a first step towards this, 10 per cent of the usage in the Mathura refinery will be converted to green sources by 2024. The company had announced in its annual general meeting held in August that it may soon build the nation's first 'Green Hydrogen' plant at Mathura Refinery. The unit is likely to have a capacity of around 160,000 barrels per day.
This comes at a time when the country is looking a proposal to make it mandatory for fertilizer plants, oil refineries and steel plants to use green hydrogen as part of its plan to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. The government is reportedly planning to make it mandatory for these selected areas to use green hydrogen to meet 0.15 per cent of their total hydrogen requirements by 2024. Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced using renewable energy through electrolysis. This method uses an electrical current to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water.
India had launched the National Hydrogen Mission on the country’s 75th Independence Day on August 15, 2021. The mission is expected to help the country meet the climate targets and also in converting India to a green hydrogen hub. At present, the country’s entire production of hydrogen is coming from fossil fuels. “We expect the hydrogen production to increase from 6 million metric tonne (MMT) now to around 12 MMT by 2030,” Ramakumar added.
Many industry majors including Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, Adani Group and power sector major NTPC have already announced their plans to come out with hydrogen projects. Ambani had said that India is likely to be the leader in hydrogen technology by becoming the first country to produce it below $1 per kilo gram.
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