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.
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