Pitch for hydrogen production by natural gas pyrolysis

The Council for Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW),  Delhi-based think-tank is preparing a pitch for the production of hydrogen using natural gas pyrolysis (NGP).

In NGP, natural gas is heated, typically by passing it through a column of extremely hot, molten metal (usually tin or iron). At temperatures of about 1,000 degrees C, the carbon and hydrogen in natural gas split; the hydrogen bubbles up and is captured, while the carbon floats on the metal, which is skimmed and the solid carbon put to industrial uses (graphene, carbon black etc).

In an article the Business Line newspaper quotes Hemant Mallya, Senior Programme Lead, CEEW, as saying that NGP is "a good interim solution" until green hydrogen from water electrolysis becomes economically viable.

It is understood that CEEW would be bringing in a report on NGP shortly. The message of the report is likely to be that NGP is a guilt-free way of using natural gas, as it emits no CO2. 

BASF, the German chemical MNC, says that 3 kg of carbon is produced for every kg of hydrogen.

                                             Image courtesy: BASF

The article also takes note of research work underway at IIT-Madras in NGP, and speaks of the lab-level success achieved by Prof R Viny and Prof R Sarathy, in doing NGP at much lower temperatures, using a method called 'non thermal plasma'.

Comment

While India does not have much natural gas, whatever is available could be run through NGP to produce hydrogen, and perhaps thence to green ammonia. 

India also does keep stumbling upon some natural gas resources here and there, as this report says. All the newly available natural gas could be, by policy, reserved for green hydrogen technologies, like NGP.

Besides, if coal or biomass is converted to methane, such methane, instead of being burnt, could be put into NGP for the production of green hydrogen and carbon.

Sources say that Birla Carbon is thinking of entering NGP, but this has not yet been confirmed with the company. 

ResearchandMarkets comes out with India H2 Fuel Cell market report

ResearchandMarkets.com, the Dublin, Ireland-based market research company, has released a 'India Hydrogen Fuel Cell Market Report', a priced publication.

A press release issued on 21st February says that the country research report on India hydrogen fuel cell market is a customer intelligence and competitive study of the India market. It provides "deep insights into demand forecasts, market trends, and, micro and macro indicators in the India market."

Also, factors that are driving and restraining the hydrogen fuel cell market are highlighted in the study. This is an in-depth business intelligence report based on qualitative and quantitative parameters of the market.

Additionally, the 40-page report provides readers with market insights and detailed analysis of market segments to possible micro levels. The companies and dealers/distributors profiled in the report include manufacturers & suppliers of hydrogen fuel cell market in India.

The report provides technology-wise details, dealing as it does with several types of fuel cell technologies, such a phosphoric acid fuel cells, PEM, SOFC, Direct Methanol Fuel Cells and Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells. It also discusses fuel cells from the point of view of applications, such as automotive, power storage and material handling. 

Ohmium's 2nd research partnership, with CSIR-CECRI

It is Ohmium's second research sponsorship, after the one with IIT-M Research Park, in January 2022.

US-headquartered Ohmium International, which is into PEM electrolysers for green hydrogen production, has announced that it would sponsor “research into new material to support the next generation electrolyzer technology” at the Central ElectroChemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, which is one of the research laboratories of the government of India’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). 

A press release issued by Ohmium today said that the collaboration began on February 4; the sponsorship is for a duration of three years. 

The release quotes Dr. Chockkalingam Karuppiah, Chief Technology Officer, Ohmium, as saying that the sponsorship would enable Ohhium "to leverage CECRI’s deep expertise and resources, which will benefit both our current and the next generation technology.” 

Dr. Kalaiselvi, Director, CSIR-CECRI, says in the release that the research would "focus on material innovation, deployable as sustainable solution provider.” 

Ohmium, which has a plant in Bengaluru, is the only electrolyzer manufacturer in India and the Bengaluru plant is the only manufacturing facility the company has anywhere in the world. 

This Ohmium’s second research sponsorship in India. In January, the company had announced a similar agreement with the IIT Madras Research Park “to accelerate Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer performance enhancements.” 

 

Emphasis on green ammonia hailed

An article in the Business Line newspaper has hailed the hyphenation of green ammonia with green hydrogen in the first tranch of the Green Hydrogen policy, announced on Feb 17 by the Union Power Minister, Mr R K Singh.

The article is by far the only one that has taken due note of the government's emphasis on green ammonia; all other newspapers and media have focused on G-H2, completely ignoring green ammonia.

The article argues that a green ammonia unit linked to green hydrogen, provides a ready market for G-H2. Ammonia is much easier to store and transport and, though its primary use is in the manufacture of fertilizers, it has wide and multiple applications.

Atmanirbhar possibility now

The article further notes that till date India had no option but to import, because ammonia is typically manufactured with natural gas (hydrogen source), and India has very little natural gas.

However, when domestic G-H2 is produced, it provides an alternative source of hydrogen for the Haber-Bosch process, which forces hydrogen and nitrogen to combine, under high temperature (450 Degrees C) and pressure (200 bars). At last, India has a chance to be self-reliant in ammonia and hence in fertilizers. Hence the hyphenation of green ammonia with G-H2.

But really, the green ammonia would be the greenest only if the electricity supplied for the Haber-Bosch process also comes from renewable sources. 

Adani group MoU with Ballard Power of Canada for

 The Adani group has announced signing of an MoU with Ballard Power of Canada

 "to evaluate a joint investment for the commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cells in 

various mobility and industrial applications in India."

“Green hydrogen is the fuel of the future and fuel cells will be a game-changer in India’s energy transition,” said Vneet S Jaain, Director, Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL).

“Our ability to build a world-class green hydrogen value chain will be critical in facilitating the energy transition and we are excited to partner with Ballard to create a shared fuel cell ecosystem in India. We will be deploying innovative use cases across our businesses with fuel cell trucks, mining equipment, marine vessels, off-road vehicles, and critical industrial power. We will shape the industry through this strategic collaboration,” he said.

“India represents a new growth opportunity for Ballard, and we look forward to working with the Adani group to support and accelerate their energy transition and decarbonisation goals.” said Randy MacEwen, Ballard’s President & CEO.

Comment

This, like L&T - HydrogenPro, is another 'exploratory' MoU, with very little substance in it. As noted elsewhere in this blog, global manufacturers of fuel cells and electrolysers are extremely busy executing orders and have little time for a distant Indian market. 

It is noteworthy that Ballard Power, which is very active on Twitter, has neither tweeted it nor has issued a press release, which indicates that the MoU -- in contrast to the grand quote of Randy MacEwen -- Ballard does not think much of this, at least at this stage.

In contrast, the Adani group has issued a press release, which has resulted in a lot of publicity. 

IOCL plans to produce 70K tons of green hydrogen by 2030

India's biggest oil refiner, the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation, has said that it plans to produce 70,000 tons of green hydrogen a year, by 2030.

IOCL's Director-R&D, Dr SSV Ramakumar, has been quoted in newspapers as saying that the 70,000 tons would account for 10 per cent of G-H2 consumption by that year.

He has said that IOCL wishes to set up a 40MW electrolyzer at Mathura refinery and another 15MW one at Panipat. 

Ramakumar has said that the new policy, announced on Feb 17 making it easier for G-H2 producers to get renewable energy, would cut the cost of manufacturing G-H2 by 40-50 per cent. 

Global electrolyser manufacturers are very busy, no time for India

Insights coming from industry insiders (Ravi Mirchandani of Ador Powertron and Siddharth Mayur of H2e Power System) reveal that the global electrolyzer manufacturers, being extremely busy with orders, have little time for the Indian market, which requires tons of patience.

Factories of companies like NEL, ITM Power and Ballard are busy executing mounting orders, the insiders say.

Dr SSV Ramakumar, who heads R&D at India's biggest refiner, Indian Oil Corporation, has told Reuters that "The kind of electrolyser capacity that will be required to realise all these ambitious programmes, they are not available right now in the country."

India consumes 7.5 million tons of hydrogen today--5.6 mt directly (for which hydrogen comes from SMR process) and another 1.9 mt embedded in imported methanol and ammonia, according to a 2021 study of the Council for Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). However, a Financial Express report quotes the consultancy, Goldman Sachs as reporting that 1 mtpa of green hyrdogen would require 8GW of electrolyzer capacity, linked with 15GW of solar power."

If all this is to be converted to green hydrogen, it would require electrolyser capacity of 130-140GW. The equation, roughly, is for 1 mt of hydrogen, 18GW of electroyser capacity is needed, to power which you would need 26-28GW of solar PV capacity.

So, if India needs to manufacture green hydrogen urgently, and global manufacturers too busy to look at India, the only way out is for the government to bring in incentives for electrolyser manufacture in the country.

On Feb 17, the government announced some measures make it easier and cheaper for green hydrogen manufacturers to get green electricity to run their electrolyzers.It is widely expected that more is coming--at least, two more measures. First, PLI for electrolyzer manufacturing (supply side) and green hydrogen purchase obligation (demand side).

Pashupathy Gopalan, an industry expert and Director at Ohmium, the only commercial electrolyzer manufacturer in India, says: "If India creates the market and demands domestic manufacturing, many will come to address the market. The time to set up electrolyzer is very small in the overall business."

"Since the National Green Hydrogen Policy is going to create a significant demand for electrolyzers in India, we are confident that several global suppliers will commit to setting up domestic manufacturing if the policy requires that. This will make India a global hub for green hydrogen. The time to set up electrolyzer manufacturing is rather short, within a year," Gopalan said.

India, Australia LoI for solar, green hydrogen

India and Australia have signed a Letter of Intent that commits the countries to working jointly for developing projects in solar and green hydrogen. 

The LoI was signed on Feb 15, by the Indian Power Minister, R K Singh and Australia's Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, according to a government of India press release.

The LoI signing was part of the 4th Indo-Australia Energy Dialogue.

"This LoI will pave the way for working towards reducing the cost of new and renewable energy technologies and scaling up deployment in order to accelerate global emissions reduction. The focus of this LoI will be scaling up manufacture and deployment of ultra low-cost solar and clean hydrogen," says the press release.

It further says:

The Co-chairs of the five Joint Working Groups under the India – Australia Energy Dialogue viz. Power; New & Renewable Energy; Coal & Mines; Critical Minerals; and Oil & Gas, presented the progress till date and the forward action plan under the respective JWGs.

There is an urgent need to focus on advancing technology and clean energy transition. In this context, the agreed forward action plan includes areas like energy efficiency technologies; grid management; R&D collaboration on flue gas desulphurisation, biomass or hydrogen co-firing, water cycle optimisation, renewables integration, batteries and electric mobility.

Apart from the power sector, there are many desirable areas of cooperation agreed under the other JWGs like reducing costs of Green Hydrogen; cooperation in sphere of coal-based energy security and resource deployment; investment opportunities in the minerals sector; exploring potential for an LNG Partnership, among other areas.

Power ministry does its bit for green hydrogen, announces a slew of measures

The Ministry of Power has done its bit towards the cause of green hydrogen. On Feb 17, Minister R K Singh announced a slew of measures to make things easy for green hydrogen manufacturers to get electricity. The only element of this that does not quite all within the ambit of the power ministry is the one about green hydrogen manufacturers setting up bunkers at ports for export.

The full government press release is given below. With this, one might say that at least the first part of what is expected of the government has happened. The other two parts, broadly, are the announcement of 'green hydrogen purchase obligation' (G-HPO), which would create an assured demand for green hydrogen and the announcement of production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for electrolyser manufacture. 

Here is the government press release:

A Major Policy Enabler by Government for production of Green Hydrogen/ Green Ammonia using Renewable sources of energy

Hon’ble Prime Minister launched the National Hydrogen Mission on India’s 75th Independence Day (i.e. 15th August, 2021). The Mission aims to aid the government in meeting its climate targets and making India a green hydrogen hub. This will help in meeting the target of production of 5 million tonnes of Green hydrogen by 2030 and the related development of renewable energy capacity.

Hydrogen and Ammonia are envisaged to be the future fuels to replace fossil fuels. Production of these fuels by using power from renewable energy, termed as green hydrogen and green ammonia, is one of the major requirements towards environmentally sustainable energy security of the nation. Government of India is taking various measures to facilitate the transition from fossil fuel / fossil fuel based feed stocks to green hydrogen / green ammonia. The notification of this policy is one of the major steps in this endeavour.

The policy provides as follows :

i. Green Hydrogen / Ammonia manufacturers may purchase renewable power from the power exchange or set up renewable energy capacity themselves or through any other, developer, anywhere.

ii. Open access will be granted within 15 days of receipt of application. The Green Hydrogen / Ammonia manufacturer can bank his unconsumed renewable power, up to 30 days, with distribution company and take it back when required.

iii. Distribution licensees can also procure and supply Renewable Energy to the manufacturers of Green Hydrogen / Green Ammonia in their States at concessional prices which will only include the cost of procurement, wheeling charges and a small margin as determined by the State Commission.

iv.Waiver of inter-state transmission charges for a period of 25 years will be allowed to the manufacturers of Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia for the projects commissioned before 30th June 2025.

v.The manufacturers of Green Hydrogen / Ammonia and the renewable energy plant shall be given connectivity to the grid on priority basis to avoid any procedural delays.

vi.The benefit of Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) will be granted incentive to the hydrogen/Ammonia manufacturer and the Distribution licensee for consumption of renewable power.

vii.To ensure ease of doing business a single portal for carrying out all the activities including statutory clearances in a time bound manner will be set up by MNRE.

viii. Connectivity, at the generation end and the Green Hydrogen / Green Ammonia manufacturing end, to the ISTS for Renewable Energy capacity set up for the purpose of manufacturing Green Hydrogen / Green Ammonia shall be granted on priority.

ix.Manufacturers of Green Hydrogen / Green Ammonia shall be allowed to set up bunkers near Ports for storage of Green Ammonia for export / use by shipping. The land for the storage for this purpose shall be provided by the respective Port Authorities at applicable charges.

x.The implementation of this Policy will provide clean fuel to the common people of the country. This will reduce dependence on fossil fuel and also reduce crude oil imports. The objective also is for our country to emerge as an export Hub for Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia.

The policy promotes Renewable Energy (RE) generation as RE will be the basic ingredient in making green hydrogen. This in turn will help in meeting the international commitments for clean energy.

Green hydrogen policy coming today, at least in part

The government of India will come out with (at least its first instalment of) green hydrogen policy document today (Thursday, February 17), Union Power Minister R K Singh has told reporters.

Here is a video of his interactions with reporters, as provided by Economic Times.

The policy will offer 'open access', free transmission and storage of electricity that is to be used in electrolysers, the Business Line newspaper reports, quoting the minister. 

The report says: "The government will notify first part of the National Hydrogen Policy this week to promote manufacturing of green hydrogen, under which any entity can set up a renewable energy (RE) capacity anywhere in the country and the government will provide the open access, free storage for 30 days and free transmission if the facility is set up before 2025. 

The first part of Green Hydrogen Policy will come out tomorrow (Thursday) or day after. For manufacturing green hydrogen, we will give the liberty to the entities that they can set up RE capacity anywhere in India by themselves or through a developer. The government will provide them open access, banking (energy storage with Discom) for 30 days, and free transmission if that capacity is set up before 2025. They can produce green hydrogen or green ammonia.” 

Norwegian company, Hexagon Purus, to supply hydrogen cylinders to Reliance Industries

Norway-based Hexagon Purus has received an order from Reliance Industries Ltd for the supply of hydrogen cylinders to Reliance for use in pilot projects for automotive and back-up power applications.

The size of the order, either in terms of number or value, has not been disclosed.

Hexagon Purus is a Norwegian company with a strong presence in Germany and the US, Hexagon Purus specialises in Type 4 composite cylinder technology and fuel systems for the ever-developing hydrogen economy.

Type 4 cylinders are lightweight, extremely robust and can store gas at very high pressure, which is important to maximise fuel storage and vehicle range.

The cylinders are due to be delivered in the first half of 2022.

Frank Häberli, Senior Vice-President of Asia at Hexagon Purus, has said, “We are pleased to receive our first orders for India, and to support Reliance in the beginning of their exciting journey to transform India to a globally leading hydrogen economy.”

The orders represent Reliance’s first step towards positioning itself as a leading clean energy player, supporting the transition to a zero-emission society in India.

Hexagon Purus is  subsidiary of Hexagon Composites ASA of Norway, which holds 73.3 per cent in the company. It was spun off into a subsidiary and listed in December 2020. 

Reliance sets great story by hydrogen. It has said it would invest $75 billion into hydrogen related activities. A couple of days back, it also said it would re-purpose its gasification facilities at its key refinery to produce hydrogen, instead of syn gas.

The purchase or cylinders from Hexagon Purus is therefore a demonstration of its seriousness for quickly getting into hydrogen business.

Reliance to produce blue hydrogen for $ 1.2 - 1.5 per kg from its Jamnagar refinery, plans biomass-fed green hydrogen plants

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) says it will produce blue hydrogen at $ 1.2 - 1.5 a kg at its Jamnagar oil refinery, but re-purposing its gasifier assets. 

The gasifier assets are to be transfered to a subsidiary, Reliance Syngas, at a valuation of Rs 30,000 crore. 

In an investor presentation of Feb 11, Reliance said, "with CCUS, RIL can be one of the largest producers of blue hydrogen globally."

"Till the cost of green hydrogen comes down, RIL can be the first mover to establish a hydrogen ecosystem, with minimal incremental investment, in India," the presentation says. 

                                                     RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani

It says that its gasification plant was set up to produce syngas for energy needs of the complex, and provide a platform for future growth in high value chemicals. But now, the syn gas would be used to produce hydrogen. 

Once Reliance moves to green hydrogen--it says it explore both electrolysis and biomass-fed gasification for that purpose--the syn gas could once again be made use of to produce an assortment of chemicals.

But till green hydrogen comes, Reliance will be producing blue hydrogen, capturing the carbon dioxide coming out of the hydrogen production unit and making use of it. "Hydrogen production from gasification provides highly concentrated CO2 stream which provides unique opportunity to capture ~15 MMTPA of CO2 at 30% of typical cost of carbon capture," the presentation says. 

Government warm to the idea of co-electrolysis in sugar plants to produce sustainable aviation fuel

The government of India has accepted a proposal by H2e Power System, a Pune-based company, and the National Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories to put up a few pilot plants that can produce sustainable aviation fuel from the bagasse-derived electricity in sugar mills.

If this is taken to fruition, it will create a demand for solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) plants from the Indian sugar industry.

The Business Line newspaper reports that H2e Power's Siddharth Mayur and NFCSF's Managing Director, Prakash Naiknavare met the union power minister R K Singh recently and pitched the idea to him--and received encouraging response.

                                           Pugalur sugar plant of EID Parry Ltd; Image Courtesy: EID Parry

The report says that there are about 550 operational sugar plants in the country, most of which burn their bagasse in co-gen plants that produce electricity; the power is sold to utilities under power purchase agreements. The existing tariffs are around Rs 6 - 7 a kWhr, but most of these PPAs are nearing their terms and going foward, the tariffs will nosedive. 

Against this backdrop, the pitch is that the electricity and the carbon dioxide from the co-gen plants could be used in SOEC devices to produce hydrogen and syn gas; the syn gas can be converted into aviation fuel using the Fisher-Tropsch process.

Naiknavare has told Business Line that unless this is done, sugar plants might need to close down the co-gen units. 

The idea that has germinated is to get up 4-5 pilot plants in the state of Maharashtra. If they are successful, as they are expected to be, then "sky is the limit", according to Naiknavare.

ARCI scientist claims discovery of new method to produce hydrogen two-thirds less energy

Scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, have developed a method which combines both the processes of electrolysis and reformation to produce hydrogen from methanol-water mixture by electrochemical methanol reformation (ECMR) at ambient pressure and temperature. The main advantage of this process is that the electrical energy needed to produce hydrogen is 1/3^rd of water electrolysis (Practical water electrolysis requires 55-65 kWh/kg of hydrogen). 

In the ECMR process, which uses polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM), hydrogen can be produced at a lower temperature (25-60^oC) and pressure, unlike chemical reformation. Hydrogen separation or purification steps are not required since it is being well separated from CO₂ by polymer membrane used in the system. ARCI team is working on this technology and have developed an electrolysis unit of upto 5.0 kg/day capacity to produce hydrogen. The corresponding energy requirement for the electrolyser stack is around 17 kWhr/kg. The hydrogen thus produced by ARCI is highly pure (99.99%) and can be directly used in PEM fuel cells to generate power of about 11-13 kW.

The core components of the PEM-based ECMR electrolyser stack were fabricated indigenously and integrated with other components in the system. The electrolyser stack was fabricated using exfoliated graphite material as reactant flow field plate. Use of carbon materials as bipolar plates has been one of the significant achievements in replacing the titanium plates, which is otherwise normally used in electrolyser unit assembly, offering a conservative cost-benefit.

ARCI team has developed the indigenous process for fabricating the core components like Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA), bipolar plates, and several process equipment. This method will significantly reduce the hydrogen cost compared to the water electrolysis method and can be easily integrated with renewable energy sources. ARCI is working with industry partners for integration with renewable energy sources like PV.

Comment

It is not clear as to whether it is the presence of methanol that helps produce hydrogen at a third of the energy taken by the more conventional electrolysis methods.  Anyways, since methanol itself contain hydrogen, it looks like hydrogen-in, hydrogen-out, which would not take much energy. When more clarity emerges on this, this blog will be duly updated.

Biezel Green-Watomo Energies JV to put up India's first biomass-based hydrogen plant in Madhya Pradesh

The country's first commercial-scale biomass-based hydrogen plant is coming up in the Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh, reports Business Line newspaper. The plant will produce a ton of hydrogen a day, from a feedstock of 30 tons of biomass. It will also produce biochar and methane.

The plant is being put up by a joint venture of Watomo Energies Ltd and Biezel Green Energy with an investment of Rs 24 crore. Watomo Energies, headquartered in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh; Biezel Green is a company promoted by Prof Preetam Singh, who teaches at the IIT BHU. 

Biezel Green is the technology partner. The company owns the technology for a 'thermally accelerated anerobic digestion (TAD) reactor' that can produce hydrogen, methane and biochar from biomass. An earlier post in this blog has a detailed description of this technology. 

Watomo Energies describes itself as a "consulting, marketing, implementation and project management company', and is more like a farmer-producer organization.

Biezel Green will own 50 per cent in the yet-to-be named joint venture; the other 50 per cent will come actually come from interested farmers.

Prof Singh, who was a student of Prof John Goodenough, who won the Nobel Prize in 1999 for his discovery of the Lithium-ion chemistry for batteries. Prof Singh told Business Line today that the joint venture intends to get the Khandwa plant on-stream in July this year, coinciding with Prof Goodenough's 100th birth month.

NTPC speaks of its plans for hydrogen at Simhadri site

Diwakar Kaushik, Chief General Manager at NTPC Simhadri, Andhra Pradesh, has spoken about the company's plans around the green hydrogen production that would happen at his site. 

“During the day, the power generated by the floating solar panels electrolyse water to produce hydrogen. The green hydrogen thus produced is stored and later utilised for power generation during the night,” the Business Line newspaper quotes him as saying. 

NTPC Limited is setting up one such floating solar, renewable energy-powered, fuel cell-based 50 kW microgrid as a pilot at its 2,000 MW Simhadri thermal power plant near Visakhapatnam. 

At Simhadri, NTPC has already set up a 25 MW floating solar project, and, with the expertise of Bloom Energy, it is now developing a standalone fuel cell-based microgrid with hydrogen production. 

The Business Line report notes that Kaushik, who laid the foundation for “the world’s largest green hydrogen microgrid project” in December 2021, expects it to serve as a ‘proof of concept’ for similar ventures within NTPC and possibly elsewhere in the country.

Hydrogen will be produced by the advanced 240 kW solid oxide electrolyser using the power generated by the floating solar project during the day. The hydrogen is then stored at high pressure for use by a 50kW solid oxide fuel cell.

The system would work in a standalone mode from 5 pm to 7 am. The project’s configuration has been designed in-house. NTPC is the largest thermal power company in India, with an installed capacity of over 67,907.5 MW. 

According to Kaushik, this will be India’s first green hydrogen-based energy storage project and one of the world’s largest. It would be a precursor to large-scale hydrogen energy storage projects, and useful for studying and deploying multiple microgrids in various off-grid and strategic locations of the country.

“This unique project will open doors for decarbonising far-off regions of the country like Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, and other areas where there are no transmission lines and are dependent on diesel generators,” says Kaushik.

GAIL commences blending of hydrogen with natural gas

The government owned gas company, Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL), has said that it has begun blending hydrogen with its natural gas at Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The hydrogen blended natural ga will be supplied to Avantika Gas, a joint venture of GAIL and Hindustan Petroleum, a government-owned oil refiner. Avantika will retail the blended hydrogen to automobiles and also supply it as cooking gas to households, according to a statement issued by GAIL. 

"In line with the National Hydrogen Mission, GAIL has started hydrogen blending as a pilot project to establish the techno-commercial feasibility of blending hydrogen in City Gas Distribution (CGD) network. This project marks the stepping stone of India's journey towards hydrogen-based and carbon-neutral future," it said.

GAIL started injection of grey hydrogen at the city gate station (CGS), Indore. "This grey hydrogen would subsequently be replaced by green hydrogen," it said. 


Green hydrogen is produced by splitting water by electrolysis with electricity from renewable energy sources. 

GAIL said it has also engaged domain experts to carry out the impact assessment of blending hydrogen in natural gas.

"GAIL has always been committed to the growth of a gas-based economy in India and to India's vision of a greener and cleaner environment. As our country is moving forward with the ambitious goal of achieving a carbon-neutral and self-reliant future, this project is a significant step in that direction," the statement said.