Indian refiners to set up green hydrogen facilities by 2030

The Indian public sector oil refineries have together planned to set up 137 kilo tonnes per annum (ktpa) of green hydrogen facilities by 2030.

This was revealed by Dr S S V Ramakumar, Director – R&D, Indian Oil Corporation, at the India Energy Week, held recently in Bengaluru. Participating in a panel discussion on green hydrogen, Ramakumar said Indian Oil would first put up a 7 ktpa electrolysis plant at its Panipat refinery.

He pointed out that IOC had entered into an agreement with the renewable energy company, ReNew Power and the engineering major, L&T, for putting up green hydrogen plants, not only for IOC but for other refiners also.

There are two mature technologies, alkaline and PEM, and both have their own merits and demerits, Ramakumar said. The third one, solid oxide, “which is projected to be a super-duper technology, is at TRL 3 or 4.” (TRL is ‘technology readiness level’; level 3 or 4 refers to quite low levels of readiness.)

As a country, all the research institutions need to concentrate on AEM technology—if we want to adopt the electrolysis technology pathway, Ramakumar said.

While IOC has planned green hydrogen production by electrolysis, i.e., splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity, Ramakumar said that the biomass gasification was a better way of producing green hydrogen in India.

Describing the biomass route as “very, very promising”, he said that the route does not suffer from the demerits of electrolysers, a big one of which is the need for large quantities water. While sea water electrolysis is being “intensely looked into” today’s electrolysers require pure water, Ramakumar said.