Green Hydrogen as a Fuel - Indian Companies leading the Green Revolution

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You may be right to some extent.
It all depends how hydrogen is going to be used in Automobiles …
We have two distinctly different versions- both technology is available !

(1) If Hydrogen is going to be used in IC engine , it is going to be burnt in side the cylinder, then obviously it may require some maintenance when compared with EV with battery.
However , since the combustion product is only water and from tail pipe you will get only steam …but with Conventional petrol diesel engines where a dozen of chemicals are formed during combustion …the maintenance requirement in hydrogen IC engine may be lesser than a petrol diesel engine…

(2) But if Hydrogen is going to be used as fuel cell in an automobile, there is no engine required .there is a electrochemical cell where hydrogen will produce electricity which in turn will drive the vehicle . .it is maintenance free when compared with battery EV…as battery in EV is costly and will be a recurrent expenditure.
Hope it clarifies !

It can be noted that in both versions of Hydrogen Vehicle, there is no requirement of costly Lithium Ion battery or a series of batteries…a normal small battery in line with petrol diesel vehicle is required for starting purpose

You may please read this post !

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Water vapor is the biggest contributor to greenhouse effect (global warming). However humans, as of now, don’t contribute directly to increased water vapor emission. It is though due to the CO2 emission which causes increased global temperature and hence more evaporation.

By using hydrogen, humans will directly contribute to water vapor emission. Will it be more harmful than the current CO2 emission? That I am not sure.

Ref:

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Good question…but the answer lies in the article itself…
CO2 primarily responsible as green House Gas , increases overall of the atmosphere temp and consequently leads to creation of water vapour from water bodies which then naturally recycles back in form of condensation, precipitation /Rain …water vapour does not stay in atmosphere for ever …

Moreover, even if some human activity results in water vapour …it is not significant when compared with water vapour created from ocean/ water bodies by global warming action of CO2 (70% of Earth’ surface is covered with Ocean…)

In a natural process, CO2 is also supposed to get recycled by absorption by plants through photosynthesis. Imbalance of CO2 occurs because of (1) Industrial activity increases day by day…no of vehicles increase day by day… (2) Deforestation/forest clearance for human settlement…
So coming to Hydrogen causing water vapour through human activity such as Hydrogen burning in IC Engines of automobiles may not be significant when compared with Water vapour caused due to vast ocean heating (70% earth surface with water bodies)

However, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles …no burning of hydrogen fuel takes place …

And one more update, even in conventional petrol diesel vehicle , the exhaust gas also contains a lot of steam Along with other gases…since it is a hydro carbon fuel.

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EV makers feel the shortage of Li ion battery as the demand rises

We are yet to come out of the semi conductor crisis which has affected Auto sector for the last 8 months.
Now, the price of Lithium have gone up by 3 times during last one year…Now Graphite Anode is also in short supply - all sourced from China.
This is expected when the raw material is concentrated in one or two places and the whole world depends upon it

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Very interesting thread and insightful read on the subject matter of Battery vs Hydrogen…

I think the need is to objectively map the opportunities with available companies in listed domain to understand more from the individual company perspective and evolution of their business and vision regarding these new energies…

Can someone list and map such companies??

Some which come to my mind are -

  1. RIL - Green Hydrogen

  2. L&T - Green Hydrogen

  3. PSUs such as GAIL, NTPC, IOCL etc - Green Hydrogen

  4. Tata Chemicals - Battery, Sodium Battery?

  5. Tata Power

  6. Any others??

Above all are either generators or manufacturers …

real winners may lie in high tech firms enabling these generators…like -

  1. KPIT? - Software tech enabling new energy adoption in Automobiles

  2. Tata Elxsi? - Software tech enabling new energy adoption in Automobiles

  3. Hitachi Energy? (Do they have any existing tech or in R&D at present for these new energy?)

  4. ABB/Siemens? (Do they have any existing tech or in R&D at present for these new energy?)

  5. L&T - This can work in both generating and enabling areas?

  6. Any Others??

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I believe companies like Everest Kanto Cylinder are proxies to CNG and green hydrogen.

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Good point raised !
While certain things are known about these companies…but we are yet to discover their strategies…and many other things
As we move on, and things evolve we will come to know. Before we start this exercise , wanted to highlight some important points :

(1) EV - Lithium Ion batteries are not sustainable for the long term, though for next 1-2 years there is no choice until Reliance scales up Sodium ion battery, for which they have acquired Faradion of UK

(2) So far, No one else in india has declared any plans for sodium ion battery…Tata chemical had plans for lithium ion …even they have set up plant for recycling of Lithium ion battery…
However , in view of Reliance plan for sodium , Others may change their plans …
Govt PLI scheme no longer emphasize Lithium ion battery …it says advance battery chemistry …

(3) Some 10 companies have applied for 18000 crore PLI for battery manufacturing …names are available in one of my post.
But it does not mean that other companies are not intersted… for example Tata’s and Adani have not applied for PLI…

(4) No lithium Ion batteries required for Hydrogen IC engine and Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles …both technology are available and are in commercial production in many countries…this is the ideal solution which all nations have understood…which all are looking forward …provided Hydrogen is generated from water spliting through electricity by an Electrolyzer - electricity to be mandatorily produced through renewable sources …solar wind… hydrogen so produced would be called as Green hydrogen.

(5) All our Oil PSU’S/ Fertiliser companies mandatorily to produce Green hydrogen for captive consumption…since they need hydrogen as a feedstock for various products. They can no longer use grey hydrogen.
So what these companies are going to do is put up solar / wind power plant and electricity so produced at plant sites would be used to produce green hydrogen for captive consumption…only after meeting their captive consumption need , they may produce green hydrogen for the market needs

(6) All Other renewable pvt players such a Tata power, Adani , Reliance ,ReNew , L&T, those who currently produce Solar , wind power in massive scale to feed the grid sooner or later will have to go for forward integration to produce Green hydrogen…because of sunlight wind not available 24x7…so they would produce green hydrogen when sunlight /wind is available and out of green hydrogen, they would produce electricity when sunlight wind not available … that makes sense !

(7) I was going through a recent article which says that the renewable/ Green energy players are upbeat about that business prospects due to Golbal tailwind… Every nation has a steep target to achieve …and so these players on their own would like invest heavily without Govt subsidies … Most of these are cash rich companies…the theme for all nations /whole world is …To tackle Global warming , Climate change, Reduce carbon emission, Save the Planet- All are ready to execute plans with sincerity…an article link is attached at the end of this post.

This article names most of the prominent players in Renewable Energy apart from Reliance…interestingly I found an Indian company ReNew power is one of the biggest player not listed in Indian stock exchange , but Nasdaq listed - as of today they have already installed 7.5 GW renewables.Though unlisted, but they have entered in to a partnership with
L&T to bid for all mega renewable projects.

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MTAR is working on technology related to green hydrogen

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I was examining mtar …in fact I have a small position …but they are basically in to high precision machined components for nuclear power , rocket, Aircraft …now they can produce Electrolyzer…but what is the capacity ? What is their current revenue contribution for hydrogen?
So they are not exclusively for Electrolyzer…IMHO…but yes we can definitely track it . .
As far as Electrolyzer is concerned , I am tracking one company … Ohmium international…USA based , with exclusive Electrolyzer plants in Italy , now they have opened up a Giga factory in Bangalore …they want to tap all the available opportunities across the world… they have started shipping from Bangalore…even before supplies to India, they have started shipping to Overseas market…
This company has a clear vision of developing local vendors in India …so though the company is not listed in India now, but we have to see if any listed mid cap small cap companies will cater to this Electrolyzer mega plant

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I have a question, pardon me if it is already answered.
Electrolysis is the process of using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
How will the water be sourced?
Will it cause other environmental issues like cola bottling plants?

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All looks good…few things I am thinking loud -

  1. If Green H2 solutions and automobile tech was already available and being used in other countries, why did India chose Li Ion EV route with such a big bang?
  2. Did Pandemic and supply chain constraints made India rethink its strategy or some other reason to go for EV (Lithium Ion) in the first place? Even if pandemic made India rethink the strategy, what were the earlier reasons for chosing Li Ion EV strategy over Green H2?
  3. Which countries have a Green H2 for automobile strategy since begining and ahead of Li Ion EV? Which country is leader in Green H2 and what is the strategy of US? (India generally goes on similar lines of this larger democracy rather than any other country in tech and various other matters where it needs direction)
  4. Shale Gas was also a big fad a decade back and RIL invested heavily in US…now no one hears about this…neither in US nor in India…why such a failure of a energy source and again if Green H2 is the answer then Li Ion tech would face a rather quick extinction…in such case long term investors need to think which type of company they should invest in…
  5. How technologically complex would be Green H2 vehicles as compared to the Li Ion EVs? The software and hardware design and development complexity?
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Good question…
At plant sites … whatever water is consumed through electrolysis can be got back …
How ?
Because hydrogen produced through electrolysis is stored in a container and then at times when Sunlight wind is not available , hydrogen is fed in to an electrochemical cell and along with oxygen from air is used in the electrochemical Cell to produce electricity …bye product is water…

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Answers lies partly in your questions itself .
Because questions and answers are interdependent , I will try to summarise!

Tesla had the first movers advantage of producing electric vehicles with Li ion battery in large numbers even before pandemic…set up the supply chain for EV…

Toyota, Hyundai , Honda had the Hydrogen technology since decades, considering that it is the ideal zero carbon vehicle…they have been selling these cars since decades all around the world, though the cost was much higher than that of EV…now BMW , Audi have quickly developed hydrogen cars in Europe …they already had design proto’s.

Hydrogen Vehicle absolutely zero carbon emission …EV battery requires charging with electricity produced by thermal power plant…so carbon emissions are involved indirectly.

Even if we have 100% renewable electricity to charge lithium ion battery, still lithium ion battery is a scarce material…so not sustainable

…however if sodium ion battery or any other new sustainable Battery is commercialized, and if a country has 100% renewable , then may be EV could also be sustainable…

EV vehicles - technology is less complex to manufacture …was already there in india since last 15 years. Tata Motors & Leyland supplied EV to DTC and BEST in 2008-2010… Only issue is the supply chain of Li ion battery …only China is leading supplier… fulfills 80% of Global requirement …and only 1-2 countries have Li cobalt mines…so much so Li ion battery cost constitutes 30-40% of EV cost.
Hydrogen vehicles …technology though available with some of our OEM’s , but scaling it up, commercializing could take time due to cost factor for price sensitive Indian consumers.

With this back ground in mind , post pandemic two things have happened :

(1) Every country wanted to expedite its Carbon Emissions reduction program… …timelines and targets squeezed …rush for EV …as technology was readily available in all countries…and hydrogen technology was available mainly with Japan and Korea …
All depended on lithium ion battery which was readily available with China.

(2) Then people now realise supply disruptions on lithium ion battery from China could be a big issue …due to heavy rush for EV…
It is only by hindsight…post pandemic …in the mean time China also could smell that lithium ion battery not sustainable… though they have a small lithium mines, still they have to import lithium cobalt from countries like Congo…so to maintain their leadership position, they developed a more sustainable first sodium ion batteries in July 2021…now they have upgraded the sodium ion battery and filed patent this month …the latest design seems to be at par with lithium ion battery …

Now , we also have sodium ion battery technology in India which Reliance has bough a start up…but scaling it up and execution is the key…other nations also working on sodium ion battery …

So to sum up Indian scenario:

(1) EV is already here in india …hydrogen switch can not be done overnight…however in my opinion EV with Li Ion battery may carry risk of intermittent supply chain disruptions with lithium ion battery …if sodium ion battery is developed fast or some other sustainable battery technology comes up , then EV may also catch up very fast in coming years.

(2) Perhaps, anticipating EV supply chain disruption, our Govt has started pushing for ethanol flexi with BSVI…so ethanol stories is likely to play out well given the govt push and a lot of potential to produce Ethanol.

(3)Hydrogen Vehicle…OEM are taking up…gradually …will make its way sooner or later.

(4) Solar, Wind Power energy may be considered as main investments bets- they can produce green hydrogen with forward integration …Green Hydrogen in turn could be used in many ways including producing electricity…Hydrogen Automobiles is one of them… if you refer to my previous posts …

If you want to get some insights on world hydrogen companies …you may please read this two articles …

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/9-best-hydrogen-fuel-cell-160312564.html7bh

Discl : I have investments in Renewables, Green hydrogen story, Ethanol, CNG , Auto Ancillary ( Engine neutral ), IT (ER& D), EV (reduced allocation) . …It is not an investment advice …This is my personal views …I may be wrong.
Please do your own assessment before investments

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@1957 - Thanks for all insights. Reading everything, my current thought is not to invest in any particular type of Energy players - Hydrogen or Li or Sodium etc. but rather invest in companies with solid management/promoters who are committed to the below stories of India (some names which come to mind) -

  1. New Energy story of India - RIL, Tata Power (If one is interested in conglomerates or power sector)
  2. New Automobile Story of India - Tata Motors, M&M (i.e. if one is interested in Automobile sector)
  3. New enabling tech story of India - Software/Design side - Tata Elxsi, KPIT, LTTS (if one is interested in engineering tech sector)
  4. New enabling tech story of India - Hardware/Infra side - Hitachi Energy, ABB, L&T (if one is interested in capital goods/infra tech sector)

Need to study MTAR and other related tech/infra tech firm - As my interest lies in enabling Tech side sector.

More thoughts welcome!

Disc: Invested in Tata Elxsi, LTTS & Hitachi Energy hence biased. Above post is only for academic purpose and no buy/sell recommendation. These are just random evolving thoughts and I can be completely wrong in all my assessments.

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@1957 Thanks for all insights. You have busted all myths of EV with Li-ion battery is the future. I think Now everyone will focus on FCEV.

If you don’t mind me, Could you please suggest the companies which Play the theme?
electrolyzer, Parts used in Green Hydrogen, Ethanol, etc.

Could you please share where you have invested to play this theme? So which helps us for further assessment before making our investments. Sorry to ask you this question Straight-forwardly.

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Just curious no one spoke about JSW energy in the thread so far related to Green hydrogen.

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I have a long term horizon of 2-3 years.
Renewable Energy and carbon emission Play:

  1. Reliance- Among all large cap stocks , this is the only stock which has given consistent return to share holders over last 5 years. (I have seen one post in valuepickr forum)
    But now with Retail, Jio, and renewable energy in full swing , it is expected to do well next 4-5 years. As of today, it is perhaps the only company which has concrete plans on green hydrogen - has made 6 Acquisitions on renewables- Ready to eat platter …it is expected to fire next 2-5 years …it is building a fully integrated end to end renewable energy
    eco-sytem to produce green hydrogen including Solar, battery ,electrolyser. Reliance (RIL) recently partnered with Danish company Stiesdal A/S through its subsidiary Reliance New Energy Solar (RNESL) to develop and manufacture hydrogen electrolysers. It has plans to make Sodium ion battery after acquiring Faradion.

(2) My Tata basket of renewables consists of Tata Elexi, Tata power, Tata chemicals and to some extent Tata Motors.
Tata Power sooner or later may extend up to Green hydrogen and Battery…no confirmed news on Green hydrogen as of today…but it is going to be a logical approach for all Solar/ wind power producers.
(3) L & T Basket on renewables (L&T and LTTS)
L & T has already partnered with ReNew power one of the biggest player in renewables with 7 GW installed capacity. ReNew is not yet listed in India , but only Indian Renewable listed in Nasdaq .L&T has also applied under Battery PLI scheme clearly indicating that they want to be an integrated renewable player. They have capability to make Electrolyser- if they can make nuclear reactors . Why not Electrolyser-?
(4) Electrolyzer & Fuel Cell : Electrolyzer consists of Anode + & cathode- seperated by a electrolyte medium. The electrolyte could be a solid state plastic polymer medium or could be alkaline medium consisting of sodium /potassium hydroxide. Anode & cathode could be coated with a catalyst of platinum or Iridium or Nickel. What is popular is the PEM Electrolyzer…PEM stands for Proton exchange membrane or also known as polymer electrolyte membrane.

Electrolyser splits water in to hydrogen oxygen with help of electricity generated through solar and wind . where as Fuel cell is just opposite to Electrolyser- it takes hydrogen gas and with the help of oxygen can produce electricity…

To start with the Oil PSU’ s may go only for Electrolyzer to get green hydrogen which is a required feed stock…
However , if Solar / wind power is to be fed in to grid , then Electrolyzer- Fuel cell combo may be required for which technology is available …
In day time when there is abundant sunlight or wind, the electrolyser converts excess power in to hydrogen and when there is no sunlight / wind the Fuel cells converts hydrogen to electricity and feeds to the grid …thereby grid stability is maintained.
One 10 MW electrolyser can produce up to 4500 kgs of hydrogen per day.
Today , the world’ largest electrolyser is of 20 MW installed in North America by a leading company called “Air Liquide” Cummins technology based which is producing 8.2 Tons of hydrogen per day.
The all time high max capacity is of 24 MW under installation in Germany by a company called Linde industries.
Indian scenario- Recently NTPC has installed a 5MW Electrolyzer in UP and GAIL has floated a Global tender for a 10 MW Electrolyzer.

There is going to be a mega PLI scheme for Electrolyzer and fuel cell manufacturing…let us wait and see who are all applying…
We are taking a cumulative target of 5 GW Electrolyzer by 2030. European union consisting of all European countries have a target of 40GW Electrolyzer cumulative capacity by 2030.

(5) My Ethanol story is mainly Praj .I had sugar stocks which I booked profit and exited…may enter again…but sugar stocks are little volatile depending upon monsoon condition …Ethanol story …you may please refer my recent post under Praj thread. Apart from Ethanol, Praj is a well diversified Bio technology company …if other Renewables such as Bio- mass to bio gas or bio ethanol plays out …then the stock may perform well.Even with stand alone Ethanol , it is expected to do well

(6) CNG story …I had both IGL & Gujarat Gas…exited IGL… Gujrat Gas …still in my portfolio.

(7) On EV…I have tried to play through some Auto ancillaries such as Minda twins which supply components to both EV and IC engine vehicles …Mother-son sumi …I had exited…but once again building in to my portfolio on declines…

Discl: This is not an investment advice…I may be biased .please do your own assessment or consult your investment advisor before investing

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Yes, GSW energy has definite plans for green hydrogen. In fact I got confused since demerger was taking place …
I was also not sure about its ESG score !
Yes, if you have invested and you have some knowledge about the group and it’s ESG history…I am open for investment.
I need to explore further

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