Maire Tecnimont Group and NTPC Sign MoU to develop green methanol project in India

Tecnimont Private Limited, Indian subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont Group, has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NTPC, India's largest power generation company. The objective of the MOU is to jointly evaluate and explore the possibility to develop commercial scale Green Methanol Production facilities at NTPC project in India, says a NTPC press release.

 

The Green Methanol Project involves capturing carbon from NTPC power plants and converting it into green fuel. Green Methanol has a wide range of applications, including serving the chemical industry as a base material, being used as an energy carrier for storing electricity generated from renewable sources, and serving as a transportation fuel. It is also considered as a substitute fuel for maritime fuel applications.

 

Alessandro Bernini, Maire Tecnimont Group and NextChem CEO, commented: “This collaboration with a leading player such as NTPC represents another strategic milestone for Maire Tecnimont Group in its roadmap to consolidate its industrial footprint as technology provider and energy transition enabler for the Indian natural resource transformation market.”

 

About Tecnimont Private Limited

Tecnimont Private Limited (TCMPL) is a subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont Group and serves as the Group’s centre of Engineering excellence for India. With more than 2,000 employees, TCMPL is headquartered in Mumbai and has support offices in New Delhi, Middle East, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia. It is a leader in Engineering and Main Contracting for the natural resources transfo  rmation industry. With a legacy now spanning six decades, TCMPL has exhaustive experience in executing more than 400 projects globally.

 

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A.

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., a company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, heads an international industrial group that is a leader in the transformation of natural resources (plant engineering in downstream oil & gas, with technological and execution competences). Through its subsidiary NextChem, it operates in the field of green chemistry and the technologies to support the energy transition. Maire Tecnimont Group operates in about 45 countries, through approximately 50 operative companies and about 9,300 people. For more information: www.mairetecnimont.com.

 

Vibrant energy wants to plunge into green hydrogen

Hyderabad-based Vibrant Energy, a renewable energy company with operating capacitiy of 132 MW and in-pipeline capacity of 3 GW, is "actively exploring opportunities of delivering green hydrogen and green ammonia to our clients," the company's CEO, Srini Viswanathan, has told Mercom.

"It works as a natural extension for many of our customers who are potentially buying massive amounts of green energy from us to simply allocate some of it to run electrolyser to generate green hydrogen," he said.

"We can pivot a lot of industrial hydrogen to green hydrogen and at some point in the future, even pivot our large truck transportation mechanism to hydrogen, we can save a significant amount of foreign exchange for the economy and that will be a huge accretive scenario for the country," he said.

                                           Photo credit: Vibrant Energy website

Recently, Vibrant Energy announced its deal with Amazon, under which it would sell green power to the tech giant. Vibrant energy is a subsidiary of Macquarie's Green Investment Group. 

Indian parliament upper house clears new law that will help develop hydrogen, non fossil fuels

The Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of India's Parliament, on December 14 passed the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, into law. It only awaits the formalty of the President of India's signature.

Though the law is titled Energy Conservation, the amendments all push the country in the direction of non-fossil fuel economy. The essential features of the amended legislation is the ushering in of a domestic carbon market in India, sweeping-in more buildings into the ambit of a green buildings code and mandating major consumers to consume non-fossil fuels. It is in the last part that green hydrogen comes. 

According to the University of Oxford, the nation is the world’s second largest producer and consumer of nitrogen-based fertiliser, a category that includes ammonia made from H2, gobbling up around 17 million tonnes per year, writes Rachael Parkes, in HydrogenInsight, a magazine powered by Recharge. And this figure is only set to rise, Parkes says and quotes the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) estimates that the Indian fertiliser sector's demand for H2 (either fossil-based or renewable) will reach 7.5 million tonnes per year by 2050.  Today, Indian-made fertiliser is produced almost exclusively from grey hydrogen derived from unabated fossil gas, and is heavily subsidised by the government. In fact, for the past three years in a row, New Delhi has subsidised fertiliser production to the tune of 1.05trn rupees ($12.7bn), a figure that is set to rise in line with skyrocketing international gas prices. 

Even a mandate for just 1% of nitrogen-based fertiliser production to use a feedstock of renewable hydrogen would generate demand for around 170,000 tons of green ammonia per year, based on today’s production figures. 

Power Minister R K Singh has repeatedly said, including in the Parliament recently, that the government would bring in a mandate upon large consumers--fertilizers and refineries to start with--an obligation to purchase a prescribed percentage of green hydrogen for their operations.

Ohmium to supply PEM electrolysers to NovoHydrogen

Ohmium International, Inc., a green hydrogen company that designs, manufactures, and deploys Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Electrolyzers, has finalized an agreement with NovoHydrogen, a leading renewable hydrogen project developer, to provide its PEM electrolyzers. 

Ohmium is an American company whose only manufacturing plant is in Bengaluru, India.

The electrolyzers will be used to provide 120MW of green hydrogen capacity to an Independent Power Producer, to be used as a zero-carbon replacement fuel for a portion of the gas usage at their peaking power plant in New Jersey. Ohmium's unique interlocking modular PEM electrolyzers provide a safer, modular, flexible, easy to install and maintain alternative to customized electrolyzers.

Matt McMonagle, NovoHydrogen's CEO, has observed that "Ohmium's leading edge, modular, cost-effective PEM electrolyzers provide us with the perfect scalable solution for green hydrogen applications. We can expand capacity over time as the projects progress.

Ohmium manufactures standardized interlocking modular PEM electrolyzers that produce pressurized high-purity hydrogen. Individual electrolyzers can be stacked to significantly reduce installation and maintenance costs while enabling unlimited configurations of deployment sizes. Ohmium's proprietary electrolyzer stack technology can sustain a differential pressure across the membrane without compromise, which enhances cost-effective operation.

Nippon Sanso's US arm, Matheson, wins hydrogen order from Numaligarh Refinery in India

 Nippon Sanso Holdings Corporation (“NSHD”, President CEO: Toshihiko Hamada) hereby announces that Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc. ("MATHESON", headquartered in Texas, U.S.), NSHD’s U.S. operating company, received the Award for the Supply of Hydrogen and co-product steam for a period of 20 years from Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), a Public Sector affiliate of the Government of India.

MATHESON will invest in, and establish a large, multi-feed hydrogen plant to supply up to 132 kNm3/hr (285 Tons/day) to NRL’s refinery units at Numaligarh in Assam, India. The engineering and construction of the plant will be executed by Larsen & Toubro Limited, India, says a press release. The reforming technology is to be licensed from Topsoe A/S, Denmark. Hydrogen and co-product steam from the plant will support the highly strategic Numaligarh Refinery Expansion Project (NREP) of the prestigious Northeast development initiative of the Government of India. The project also includes the Paradip Numaligarh Crude Pipeline (PNCP) project, Crude Oil Import Terminal (COIT) at Paradip, India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline (IBFP), Numaligarh-Siliguri interstate products pipeline and 2G Ethanol Project. 

The Hydrogen complex solution was developed by MATHESON’s Global HYCO business unit in collaboration with our leading technology and engineering partners, the release from Matheson says. The solution targets flexibility and operability criteria to enable high-reliability operations with a very wide range of feedstock and fuel, as well as the highest resource utilization efficiency that supports MATHESON/NSHD’s Carbon Index considerations and economic objectives. Subsequent to completion of engineering and construction in accordance with MATHESON’s Global HYCO standards and specifications, the plant will be streamed in 2025.

homiHydrogen, a JV of h2e Powe, BlueBasic and Greenstat, to manufacture 1.5 GW of electrolyser

 Adar Poonawalla-backed homiHydrogen, a joint venture between h2e Power Systems Private Limited, BlueBasic AMA Engineering (H2energy, Italy) and Greenstat Hydrogen India, has begun its journey to a green tomorrow with an intent to set up a 1.5GW per annum manufacturing facility for electrolysers in Pune, reports the Business Line newspaper.

“Budgeted at $50 million, the new project is a stepping stone to make India a hub for green hydrogen technologies and contribute to the NetZero commitment while creating about 300 new jobs," the newspaper says.

An offset of India’s first end-to-end fuel cell and electrolyser company, h2e Power System, homiHydrogen, harbors value and expertise to provide all the four commercially available electrolysers. The venture will manufacture state-of-the-art, efficient and cost-effective Alkaline, AEM, PEM and SOE electrolysers in India. HomiHydrogen has presence in the entire value chain of electrolysers required for producing green hydrogen.

Siddharth R Mayur, Founder and Managing Director of h2e Power said, “homiHydrogen is an initiative to build an ethical, sustainable, inexpensive and a state of the art electrolysers that will cater to the domestic needs and exports. homiHydrogen stands unique with its focus not only on electrolysers but also critical components like rectifiers and transformers, research and development and last mile solutions. The name, homiHydrogen, is a tribute Homi Jehangir Bhabha.”

Commenting on the joint venture, Sturle Pedersen, Chairman of GreenStat Hydrogen India said, “GreenStat is excited to be a partner in India’s journey to become a green hydrogen hub. homiHydrogen is distinctive as we will produce a bouquet of electrolyser technologies, catering to a wide range of market segments. This joint venture reinforces our commitment to Indo-Norwegian partnership.”

Prashant Kamath, Managing Director, BlueBasic Engineering India said, “We are extremely proud that we are able to bring global technologies to India and manufacture them with the local Indian innovation to create a built to last product. BlueBasic is looking forward to contribute to homiHydrogen with the most innovative electrolyser technologies, which will be a fitting tribute to Bhabha.”

homiHydrogen will start production in 2023 and will deliver a 100 per cent Made in India product realising the vision of an Atmanirbhar India. The company also announced it association with OIL India Ltd, to build an effective green hydrogen value chain in the country, progressing the vision further.