Identify 10 Hyrdogen projects, fund them, Alliance tells govt of India

The Indian Hydrogen Alliance (IH2A), an industry-led coalition meant to promote hydrogen economy, has suggested that the government should identify ten hydrogen projects in the country and provide incentives to them.  

“IH2A would like to suggest that the Government of India identify at least 10 National H2 Projects by end 2022, provide incentives to encourage feasibility studies for such projects within the Union Budget 2022-23, and invite industry consortia to bid for such national Bharat H2 projects,” says a statement from the Alliance, submitted as its wish-list to the government.  

IH2A counts Reliance Industries and JSW among its corporate members. Think-tanks such as CEEW and TERI and government agencies such as Niti Aayog are also its members.

The alliance says that India would need $25b to create a domestic hydrogen supply chain, starting from 25GW of electrolyser capacity, to produce the needed 5 million tons of green hydrogen. 

To make this possible, the alliance has suggested the creation of a Hydrogen Economy Development Fund “with investments from the government of India, multilateral agencies, global institutional investors, climate finance funds and the private sector,” the statement says. The fund should raise at least $1billion by 2025, it says.  

The ten projects chosen as the recipients of the incentives, should be implemented as ‘open innovation’ projects so that learnings can be replicated in next generation of H2 projects and the projects can act as regulatory sand-box for the next generation of H2 projects, IH2A has told the government. 

Here is the IH2A full statement:

 

BHEL explores tie-ups for electrolyser, fuel cells manufacture

BHEL, a state-owned company whose main business is the manufacture of boilers and turbine for thermal power plants, is now looking for joint venture partners for getting into the production of electrolysers and fuel cells.

The company will come out with an invitation for 'expression of interest' (EOI) within one week, the Business Line newspaper reports, quoting an unnamed official. 

BHEL had first come out with a EOI on November 10 for the same purpose and had set November 30 as the deadline for the responses.

“BHEL is seeking interest for partnering with it to address growing Hydrogen economy business through manufacturing of (i) Electrolyser System for Hydrogen Production and (ii) Hydrogen based PEM Fuel Cell System,” the invitation for EOI had said. “Based on the responses received, a separate request for partnership shall be issued by BHEL for selection of Partner(s) in the targeted areas of Hydrogen Value Chain business,” it had said.

The source said that the response was good and a team is evaluating the responses, but did not wish to give out any further details as the matter was still “internal”, says the news report. 

Asked why a second EOI, the official said that the first one was more to test the market, based on which “we will not enter into any tie-up". The upcoming invitation would be more detailed and would possibly result in joint ventures, the Business Line report quotes the official as saying.

Apart from boilers, turbines and transmission products, BHEL also has had a presence in transportation—it produces locomotive engines. It also from time to time produces some products, such as guns, for the Defence.

Comment

BHEL is broke, mainly because its business mainstay, thermal power projects, is dying with no hopes of revival. In 2020-21, it made a net loss of ₹2,717 crore, on a turnover of ₹16,296 crore. In the first half of the current financial year, its turnover was ₹7,634 crore and net loss ₹513 crore.

But BHEL's problems run deeper--very poor R&D and reluctance to enter new businesses. The writing has been on the wall clearly for quite some time that the thermal power business would go. Yet, the company got into no new businesses. In the past, the company has toyed with many diversifications, from small passenger planes to wind turbines, but inertia always prevailed.

The second EOI, soon after the first one, perhaps indicates that the response to the first one was nothing much to write home about. 

However, it may not be a bad idea for a technology company to tie-up with BHEL because of the immense manufacturing facilities it has. The company is an expert in heaving engineering. Therefore, one should welcome its foray into electrolyers, fuel cells. Better late than never. 

Thyssenkrupp rolls into Indian hydrogen sector

German conglomerate, Thyssenkrupp, has big plans for the hydrogen sector in India, reports Economic Times newspaper. 

The company has plans to invest in India, the report says. 

German conglomerate Thyssenkrupp is betting big on producing green hydrogen through its proprietary electrolyser technology in India, at a time when plans are afoot at the headquarters to spin off its hydrogen business and take it to the bourses soon. 

 
The company said that there was a growing demand for electrolyser technology globally as well as in India as industries look for greener fuels to reduce their carbon footprint and meet their sustainability goals. Being one of the few companies to have demonstrated scalable electrolyser technology, Thyssenkrupp was ramping up its production facilities. 
 
"While ramping up, there are also plans to invest in India. We are working out on which part of the value chain of producing electrolyser can we invest in and develop in India," Cetin Nazikkol, the chief executive of Thyssenkrupp Asia Pacific Africa, told the newspaper.

Comment

Thyssenkrupp, one of world's most respectable engineering companies, entering India is good news for the country, because the company has experience in electrolysers.

A year back, Thyssenkrupp announced that it would build a huge, 88MW electrolyser plant for Canadat at Quebec. The plant would produce 11,100 tons of green hydrogen annually, and would be built right there, at Quebec. Commissioning of the plant was scheduled for late 2023. The plant would count among the world's largest.

 

BPCL wants to generate electricity from biomass-derived hydrogen, plans 50MW plant

BPCL, one of India's larger, state-owned refineries, had earlier tendered out for the supply of 20MW worth of electrolysers to produce hydrogen at its Bina refinery. This blog learns that the company has extended the deadline for the tender to January 21, in order to give prospective bidders more time.

Meanwhile, BPCL is also interesting in small, biomass-based hydrogen plants, which can process about 25-30 tons of biomass a day. That will yield enough hydrogen to run a 50MW power plant. The idea is to produce hydrogen from biomass and then use the gas in turbines to generate electricity. 

It is not clear whether BPCL has taken the initiative for such a project or has just responded to overtures by other companies. But even if it is the latter, BPCL is showing a good deal of interest.

The refiner is in talks with some hydrogen producers for a possible joint venture, a source told this blog.

Companies like GE and Mitsubishi have gas turbines that can operate on hydrogen too. 

Tata Chemicals wants hydrogen plant in Mithapur

This blog learns that Tata Chemicals is interested in putting up a large hydrogen capacity at its mother plant at Mithapur, Gujarat. The company has in mind a capacity of between 20 and 50 tons a day of hydrogen.

It seems to prefer biomass-based production of hydrogen as the region abounds in biomass. A hydrogen plant of the proposed capacity would need about 800 to 1,000 tons of biomass.

It is learnt that the company is in talks with Biezel Green, a Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh-based company, which has technology for producing low cost hydrogen from biomass. (Biezel Green has been featured prominently in this blog in earlier posts.)

Neither Tata Chemicals nor Biezel Green could be contacted for confirmation, but sources tell this blog that at least one round of talks has happened between them.

Tata Chemicals could be in talks with other companies also.

Tata Chemicals manufactures a wide range of chemicals, such as sodium bicarbonate, dense soda ash, light soda ash, soda carb, nano zinc oxide and speciality silica. Some of these needs hydrogen. At present, Tata Chemicals produces hydrogen it needs by the traditional, SMR route. But it intends to shift to green hydrogen.

Ohmium, Hero Future Energies to build 1 GW of green hydrogen, globally

Ohmium, the only manufacturer of electrolysers in India and Hero Future Energies, one of India's leading renewable energy companies, have announced a strategic partnership under which they would build 1GW of green hydrogen assets across the world. 

"Ohmium will be responsible for the design, construction, and operations and maintenance of the hydrogen production facilities. Hero Future Energies will be the Build – Operate – Own partner, generating green energy to power the production facilities and assuming overall ownership of the assets," says a joint press release.

While the press release does not give any further details, it is learnt that the idea is be able to seize opportunities for selling hydrogen. For instance, companies like Indian Oil Corporation tender out for buying green hydrogen. In such situations, this partnership would get a play.

Hero Future Energies is a third-generation entrepreneurial company and part of the Munjal family's Hero Group. HFE was established in 2012 as a deliberate strategic decision by the Group to enter the high growth market of power generation from clean and renewable sources of energy. Its current portfolio includes 1.7 GW of commissioned wind and solar power projects with an additional 1.5GW under construction or planned. The Company has a 2022 growth target of 3.5GW of installed and operating capacity. Alongside traditional renewable projects of solar and wind, HFE will look to deliver futuristic renewable energy projects utilizing new technologies including battery storage and floating solar.

Comment

Renewable energy companies are all getting into green hydrogen, where they will make use of their solar power to produce the gas. No renewable energy company can afford not to have a foot in green hydrogen. ReNew Power has tied up with L&T -- although, L&T is yet to make up its mind as to whether or not to get into the manufacture of electrolysers. Greenko has tied up with John Cockerill, the Belgian manufacturer of electrolysers. There will be more such tie-ups in the coming years from other renewable energy companies.

UP's Chief-minister-in-waiting has big plans for hydrogen

In a couple of months, there will be provincial elections in India's biggest state, Uttar Pradesh. It is expected to be a bi-polar affair, with two parties, the ruling BJP and the challenger, Samajwadi Party, vying for a majority of  the 403 seats.

BJP is pulling all stops but SP's chief, Akhilesh Yadav, who has a masters degreen in environmental engineering from the University of Sydney, Australia, seems to believe (genuinely) that he would be the next chief minister of the state.

                                                        Akhilesh Yadav

He is already making plans for state. Among them is one that is of interest to this blog and its readers.

Akhilesh Yadav has told the industry that he would build a Noida-Lucknow Hydrogen Zone. Noida lies in Uttar Pradesh, but adjuncts Delhi, so it is practically a Delhi - Lucknow hydrogen zone.

Yadav's plan is to put up hydrogen generating plants at several places, perhaps four or five, over the distance of about 512 km--so that a vehicle can ply on that route without fear of running out of gas. 

This blog hears that Yadav has already identified lands on which to put up hydrogen generating units. 

Who will put up these plants is not clear at the moment. Most probably, a few entrepreneurs will be selected through a bidding process. But what is more clear is that the plants are likely to be based on biomass, available aplenty at hand. Uttar Pradesh is an agricultural state.

In this, Yadav seems to have modeled his plans on other two similar hydrogen corridors -- the Delhi - Jaipur corridor which the Modi government is pushing and the Kolkata - Siliguri corridor, which the West Bengal chief minister, the redoubtable Mamata Banerjee, a political arch-rival of Prime Minister Modi, is keen to show as better than Modi's Delhi - Jaipur corridor. 

Well, green mobility is fast becoming a reality.