H2e Power Systems Pvt Ltd, a Pune-based company, plans to invest $ 40 million in setting up a SOEC electrolyser plant of 1GW capacity in the state of Maharashtra, the company's Founder President and CEO, Siddharth Mayur, has told the Business Line newspaper.
The company is considering two locations -- either Pune or near a port in Maharashtra. The latter is because of export opportunities. The plant is expected to go on stream in 2023.
H2e Power is financially backed by the Poonawalla family of Pune, the promoters of Serum Institute of India, which manufactures vaccines, including the Covishield vaccine for Covid-19. The Poonawalls invested an undisclosed sum of money in January 2020. Their equity stake has also not been disclosed.
Mayur has said that the company, with the intention of engendering a full manufacturing ecosystem, had been developing vendors for the 370-odd components that go into the manufacture of stacks, balance of plant and power electronics. Now, regardless of where the company will put up its plant, all the vendors will be within 200 km.
H2e Power, was started a decade ago and it developed fuel cells with technical help from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute. In the recent years, it has been wanting to get into the reverse of fuel cells, which are electrolysers. Its chosen technology is solid oxide electrolysis cells, but Mayur has told Business Line that the company also has AEM technology with it.
Indeed, H2e Power will also set up a AEM electrolyser plant, of capacity of 200MW.
In 2020, H2e Power tookover a Swiss fuel cell company called Hexis AG. Today, H2e Power has manufacturing facilities in Germany and Switzerland, from where it has made supplies to customers in the US and South Korea.
Mayur has said that the company is looking for another round of funding, possibly from strategic investors.
H2e Power's strength is its technological depth--it owns all the key patents and does not have to depend upon anyone else for technology.
Comment
If India should not miss the hydrogen bus, it should create a manufacturing ecosystem. Today, tenders for electrolyser supplies will be answered only with the machines from abroad, which only helps value addition abroad, going against Prime Minister Modi's plan for atmanirbhar or self-reliant, India.
Today, the only electrolyzer manufacturing plant that India has is that of the US company, Ohmium, which has set up its only factory in India. The second is mostly likely to be that of H2e Power.
Over time, the government of India is sure to realize that if electrolysers should not go the 'PV modules way' (90 per cent of cells and modules are imported), then it has to create a local manufacturing ecosystem. When that realization dawns, its tenders would favor locally manufactured products. Ohmium and H2e Power (and perhaps Reliance and Adanis) will stand to gain by such policies.
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