RIL prepares roadmap for $1/kg green hydrogen production target

Nearly three years after Reliance Industries (RIL) announced its target to bring down the cost of green hydrogen production to $1 per kilogram in India, its chairman Mukesh Ambani on August 28 said the company has now chalked out a roadmap towards achieving the target.

In September, 2021, Ambani, while addressing the International Climate Summit, said India can set an aggressive target of achieving a green hydrogen output target of $1 per kg within a decade. “This will make India the first country globally to achieve $1 per 1 kilogram in a decade—the 1-1-1 target for green hydrogen,” he said, adding that efforts are on globally to make green hydrogen the most affordable fuel option by bringing down its cost initially to under $2 per kg.

At the company’s 46th AGM on August 28, Ambani said RIL will simultaneously set up a fully-integrated, automated, giga-scale electrolyser manufacturing facility. This will come up at the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex in Jamnagar and it was first announced by RIL in 2021.

RIL aims to have an installed renewable energy (RE) capacity of 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and be net carbon zero by 2035. Nationally, India has set a target of having an installed RE capacity of 500 GW by 2030 and being net zero by 2070.

The National Green Hydrogen Mission, which was approved by the Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 4, alone will require about 250 GW of RE for the country to meet its targeted green hydrogen production of 5 million tons per annum.

The electrolyser manufacturing facility will enable RIL to establish large-scale green hydrogen production at Jamnagar, gradually transition its captive requirements, and simultaneously integrate with green ammonia and green methanol production for domestic and international markets.

Ambani’s oil-to-chemicals unit is one of the world’s biggest consumers of grey hydrogen, extracted from petcoke, a heavy refinery residue.

Ambani said India is facing an “energy trilemma”, for which Reliance has a practical solution to offer.

The ‘Energy Trilemma’ demands action to overcome three challenges, he said. One, affordability of energy;  Two, sustainability of energy; Three, security of energy.