Indigenous Push To Green Hydrogen: Oil India Limited Commissions Pilot Plant In Assam

Oil India Limited (OIL) has taken the first significant step towards green hydrogen economy in India with the commissioning of India’s first 99.999 per cent pure green hydrogen pilot plant, with an installed capacity of 10 kg per day at its Jorhat Pump Station in Assam on 20 April. The plant was commissioned in a record time of three months.

The Plant

The plant produces green hydrogen from the electricity generated by the existing 500kW solar plant using a 100 kW anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyser array. The use of AEM technology is being used for the first time in India.

This plant is expected to increase its production of green hydrogen from 10 kg per day to 30 kg per day in future. The company has initiated a detailed study in collaboration with IIT Guwahati on blending of green hydrogen with natural gas and its effect on the existing infrastructure of OIL.

Green Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the simplest and smallest element in the periodic table. Hydrogen can be extracted from fossil fuels and biomass, from water, or from a mix of both. No matter how it is produced, it ends up with the same carbon-free molecule. However, the pathways to produce it are very diverse, and so are the emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄).

The energy industry refers to different 'types' of hydrogen to differentiate how it is produced. Natural gas is currently the primary source of hydrogen production, accounting for around three quarters of the annual global dedicated hydrogen production of around 70 million tonnes. Gas is followed by coal, due to its dominant role in China, and a small fraction is produced from the use of oil and electricity.

The vast majority of industrial hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas through a conventional process known as steam methane reforming (SMR). The standard SMR process produces what is known as grey hydrogen and has the major disadvantage of releasing large quantities of by-product CO₂ into the atmosphere — the main culprit for climate change.

Grey hydrogen has increasingly been also produced from coal, with significantly higher CO₂ emissions per unit of hydrogen produced so much that it is often called brown or black hydrogen instead of grey.

The diverse pathways to produce hydrogen mean we can produce it using renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar. Green hydrogen is defined as hydrogen produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. That makes green hydrogen the cleanest option — hydrogen from renewable energy sources without CO₂ as a by-product.

Extant Of Problem

Supplying hydrogen to industrial users is now a major business around the world. Demand for hydrogen, which has grown more than threefold since 1975, continues to rise — almost entirely supplied from fossil fuels, with 6 per cent of global natural gas and 2 per cent of global coal going to hydrogen production.

According to the IEA, the current global demand for hydrogen is 70 million metric tonnes per year, more than 76 per cent of which is being produced from natural gas, 23 per cent comes from coal, and the remaining is produced from electrolysis of water. The high proportion of natural gas is due to its cheap prices, which leads to low cost for generation of hydrogen.

As a consequence, production of hydrogen is responsible for CO₂ emissions of around 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the CO₂ emissions of the United Kingdom and Indonesia combined.

The rapid scaling of green hydrogen based on two key technologies — renewable power (in particular from solar PV and wind, but not only) and electrolysis means it could be a critical enabler of the global transition to sustainable energy and net zero emissions economies.

Energy Transition

Green hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources can potentially replace fossil fuels and fossil fuel-based feedstocks in sectors such as refining, fertiliser production, city gas distribution, steel production thereby enabling decarbonisation of these sectors and reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Keeping in line with emission reduction targets under Paris Agreement, transition to green hydrogen is one of the major requirements in the hard to abate sectors. Green hydrogen can be used to decarbonise sectors that are difficult to electrify — like heavy industry, shipping and aviation.

Corporate Push

Green hydrogen is the new energy resource that all of India Inc’s behemoths are scrambling to tap into.

Over the last few months, several companies such as Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), Adani Group, Bharat Petroleum, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL), Renew Power and others have declared their intentions to enter the green hydrogen space. Of these companies, L&T, IOCL and Renew Power, would be forming a joint venture in order to execute the project. Clearly, these companies believe that green hydrogen could be an effective and large-scale source of fuel in a world that is weaning itself off fossil fuels.

More recently, Greenko group and John Cockerill declared their plans to build an electrolyser plant in order to secure a part of the green hydrogen value chain. Similarly, IOCL and L&T are planning to come together to produce electrolysers together. In total, it is estimated that larger players such as L&T, Adani, and Reliance alone would pump Rs 6 trillion into the sector.

Monumental Shift

The industry’s confidence comes in part from the policy push by the Indian government. In the Independence Day speech on 15 August 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the 'national hydrogen energy mission' and stated the goal to make India a global hub for green hydrogen production and export.

In line with the above announcement, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has framed Green hydrogen policy for compliance by all the concerned stakeholders.

The policy proposes a framework inter-alia for demand creation, a basket of measures to support production and utilisation of green hydrogen, support for indigenous manufacturing, research and development, pilot projects, enabling policies and regulations, and infrastructure development. A new budget line for 'national hydrogen energy mission' has been created for budget estimates 2022-2023.