New Delhi: In a bid to make India a hub of green hydrogen, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Larsen & Toubro and ReNew Power have signed an agreement to form a joint venture (JV) company to develop green hydrogen.
Additionally, IndianOil and L & T have also signed a binding term sheet to form a JV with equity participation to manufacture and sell electrolyzers used in the production of green hydrogen.
The government in February announced the Green Hydrogen policy aimed at boosting production of green hydrogen and green ammonia to help the nation become a global hub for the environmentally friendly version of the element.
The Joint Venture aimed to enable India’s transition from a grey hydrogen economy to a greener economy that increasingly manufactures hydrogen via electrolysis powered by renewable energy.
Speaking about the joint venture,SN Subrahmanyan, CEO & MD, L & T, said,”India plans to rapidly march ahead in its decarbonization efforts and the production of green hydrogen is key in this endeavour.” The IndianOil-L & T-Renew JV will focus on developing green hydrogen projects in a time-bound manner to supply green hydrogen on an industrial scale.
“Both these JVs aim to enable the nation’s “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” mission to rapidly build, expand, and bring in economies of scale to make green hydrogen a cost-effective energy carrier and a chemical feedstock for many sectors,” he added.
Talking about the importance of the JV, Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, Chairman, IndianOil, said
The partnership forged today will thus catalyse the greening of India’s energy basket.
“Being the Energy of India, we are committed to powering India’s drive towards carbon neutrality by leveraging the power of green hydrogen. IndianOil is forging this alliance to realise India’s green hydrogen aspirations, which is in sync with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of making India a green hydrogen generation and export hub. To start with, this partnership will focus on green hydrogen projects at our Mathura and Panipat refineries, “he added.
The agreement is an excellent step to support the government’s recently announced green hydrogen policy to boost India’s decarbonization journey. As Sumant Sinha, Chairman and CEO of ReNew Power, said, “In alignment with the government’s broader strategic climate goals for 2030 and 2070 set by the honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ReNew looks forward to working with L & T and IndianOil to build the green hydrogen business in India.”
“Renew, as a leader in intelligent energy solutions and with advanced capability across renewable energy technologies, is well poised to complement the capabilities of our partners,” he commented.
For countries like India, with its ever-increasing oil and gas import bills, green hydrogen can also help provide crucial energy security by reducing the overall dependence on imported fossil fuels.
While nearly all the hydrogen produced in India today is grey, it is estimated that demand for hydrogen will be 12 MMT by 2030 and around 40% of the element produced in the country (around 5 MMT) will be green, as per the draft National Hydrogen Mission guidelines.
By 2050, nearly 80 percent of India’s hydrogen is projected to be “green”—produced by renewable electricity and electrolysis.
By around 2030, green hydrogen may become the most competitive route for hydrogen production by around 2030. This may be driven by potential cost declines in key production technologies and in clean energy technologies such as solar PV and wind turbines.
Today, hydrogen is mainly used in the refining, steel, and fertilizer sectors, which will be the focus of the JVs’ initial efforts. The country’s refining sector consumes approximately 2 MMT of grey hydrogen every year, with IndianOil owning one of the largest shares of its refining output.
