Reliance is all set to become the first company in India and perhaps the only one in the world to become a fully integrated Green Hydrogen manufacturer with both forward and backward integration- To start production and marketing of Green Hydrogen by 2025 i.e. Just after one and half year from now.
RIL aims to achieve a significant milestone of producing green hydrogen @ 1USD per kg as against current cost of 5-6 USD per kg for Green hydrogen.
It has acquired all the ingredients that are required to manufacture and market Green hydrogen in India.
(A) Four Giga factories @ 60, 000 crore
(1) Electrolyser manufacturing- With the collaboration with Denmark based Stiesdal, Reliance aims to produce Hydrogen electrolyzers for India. Stiesdal is known to operate at a more cost-efficient process than its peers which will contribute to RIL’s aim to provide green hydrogen at US $1/kg which is much lesser than industry cost of US $5/kg.
(2) Fuel cells factory- RIL collaborates with Stiesdal as mentioned above for fuel cells that would convert Green hydrogen to electricity
(3) Factory for manufacturing Solar photovoltaic (PV) modules- Reliance has acquired a stake in NexWafe who provides access to wafer technology for solar photovoltaic module.
NexWafe deals in developing wafers which are an intermediate process in development of solar cells and modules. NexWafe manufactures cost-efficient and energy-efficient wafter made out of silicon instead of expensive and materials such as polysilicon production and ingot pulling RIL’s stake acquisition in the company will help RIL to get access to wafer technology and create end-to-end manufacturing of components in solar energy value chain.
(4) Factory for energy storage solution - Reliance has acquired in all cash deals two battery companies- one company called Lithium Werks for lithium battery and the deal includes all assets of the China based plant including employees and the other one is Faradion, a UK-based sodium-ion battery company…
Well, why batteries and that to two types?
There are two ways of utilising the renewable energy produced by say solar / wind …one is to go for storage of excess energy produced in day sun light and store in batteries and utilise the energy at night when solar power not available. The second way is to convert electric energy to hydrogen and convert to electricity in the night by fuel cells.
The sodium ion battery is a cheaper version and lithium is expensive one - both types have their own pros and cons and the company would position these batteries when cost is a consideration.
(5) Reliance has acquired 40% stake in Sterling & Wilson- a leading EPC player in solar energy.
(B) So, How is Reliance going to market it’s Green hydrogen ?
(1) It would require green hydrogen for its own refineries as a feedstock for captive consumption.
(2) It would sell to other oil producing PSU’s , Fertiliser plants , steel plants and companies those who need.
(3) Can take up EPC projects for other companies, power producers
(C) For Hydrogen fuel for automobiles - Reliance is leading in this initiative. it has collaborated with 3 Auto OEM’s to produce hydrogen vehicles for which hydrogen supply chain would be built by Reliance
Earlier this year , it collaborated with Ashok Leyland to unveil the first Hydrogen IC engine heavy duty vehicle.
It also collaboration with Bharat Benz- Indian arm of Mercedes Benz to produce Hydrogen Fuel
cell luxury coaches
It has also unveiled Hydrogen Buses in collaboration with Olectra Greentech in February.
Hydrogen can be used in existing diesel engines with some modification to burn Hydrogen…To start with Reliance is going to retrofit on its own contracted fleet of 45000 Trucks / tankers engaged for its own oil business.
(D) How are they going to build hydrogen infra?
They have currently 1500 Jio - BP outlets which they are building Hydrogen dispensing provision. they want to increase to 5000 Jio- BP outlets.
Going by the past record of execution capability , Reliance is all set be the first integrated Green hydrogen manufacturer.
Among other leading players, who may also be working, but milestones are not very clear though some of them already started with different aspects of value chain of Green hydrogen manufacturing and power producing - But none of them seems to deal with the entire value chain of Green hydrogen manufacturing with both forward and backward integration.
The Companies those are active with green hydrogen manufacturing include NTPC Ltd., PowerGrid India Ltd., Adani Enterprises Ltd., Reliance Industries Ltd., Larsen & Tourbro Ltd., Greenko Group Pvt., ACME Solar Holding Pvt., Indian Oil Corp. and GAIL Ltd.