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.