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

Cochin Shipyard wins off shore Wind mill order

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Off-shore Wind farm - what is it ? and what is the potential and nations that are leading in Off-shore wind farms !

What is Floating Solar power plant ? India is one among very few countries to use water bodies to produce solar energy

World’s largest 5 renewable project in Deserts across the world.

What is offshore wind power? | National Grid Group.

Discl: Not an investment advice . For information and education purpose only

It’s more dangerous rather than being useful.

Similar to government’s decision related to ethanol. Mindless decisions are being taken.

Floating Solar Power plants and to that extent any Solar power are not always meant to be fed to the Power Grid and so don’t always require power Grid/ transmission.

At times, People in general tend to get confused with grid connectivity for solar power.

As discussed earlier Power produced from Solar power plant is a renewable sources of energy can be used locally in different ways. Infact the ultimate aim of exploiting Renewable sources of energy like solar/ wind / hydro is to produce Green hydrogen from water which is plenty in nature ( 3/4 th of planet ) which is the ultimate sustainable source of energy.

(1) For example, Look at this Floating Solar power project jointly promoted by NTPC and Gujrat Gas at Surat where the Renewable sources of energy is used to produce Green hydrogen through electrolysis of pond water and Green hydrogen so produced is used to mix with Piped Natural Gas to be used as a kitchen fuel. ( please refer the link below published today)

(2) Green hydrogen so produced from floating solar projects can be transported for industrial use in Fertiser and refineries which currently use Grey black blue hydrogen and the requirement is huge …very huge . as discussed earlier ( 90% hydrogen consumption by these plants)

(3) Today , many of us are using roof top mounted solar panels for our own energy needs and so also many housing societies. This power is not fed to grid.

(4) Many Industries /manufacturing plants/ factories/ small scale industries are putting up solar power plant for captive consumption.

(5)We are still at a early stage of full scale grid connectivity for renewable sources of energy.
And just having a Grid connectivity is not going to work, as it would lead to Grid instability since renewable sources of energy are not available 24×7, 365 days in a year.

(6) ultimately , before we have grid connectivity, we need to either have a energy storage solution at the power plant or Electrolyzers to produce Green hydrogen which can then be stored for later use and then a Fuel cell to convert it back to electricity as per grid requirement.
Therefore, it would require a complete energy storage solutions , electrolyzer, fuel Cell which is the ultimate aim requiring a huge Capex and a lot of companies like Reliance , Adani , JSW, L&T , Tata and many PSU’s have started working.

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What makes Adani, JSW and NTPC go after a 100-year-old energy storage solution

Very interesting development on Grid connectivity and Energy storage solution.

In previous post we discussed that the world has plenty of opportunities to produce renewable sources of energy from Solar, Wind & Hydro. The challenge is to find a viable Energy Storage solution at the Site of Power plant to avoid Grid instability due to non-availability of renewable energy 24×7.

There are three alternate solutions known for energy storage solutions.
(1) Surplus energy produced during peak hours can be stored in in Giant lithium ion batteries or Sodium Ion batteries ( in line with EV battery pack) and later released to the Grid during non-peak hours. Here the disadvantages is the cost of battery and lithium ion is not sustainable in the long run.

(2) At peak hours , the surplus energy produced at renewable power plant can be used for Green hydrogen production through electrolyser. Green hydrogen so produced can be stored and later used to produce electricity by the help of Fuel cell technolgy during non-peak hours. This is also an expensive one though technology is implemented at many places.

(3) There is a 100 year old technolgy known as"Pumped hydro storage", which is the least expensive. In this system , there would be two water reservoirs at two different elevations. During non-peak hours, the water flows from higher reservoir to a lower reservoir by gravity and during this process passes thr a Turbine, generating electricity. During peak hours when renewable sources of energy is plenty , then the water is pumped back to higher reservoir and the cycle continues ensuring continuous electricity supply.

This is the least expensive of all the three.
To understand how the “pumped Hydro Storage system” Works, please refer the 3rd article and the you tube video thereafter.

Recently , in December, 2022 Greenko won a prestigious order from NTPC for deploying strategy 3 to supply uninterrupted power from renewable sources for next 25 years.

Here is an article From ET now. If you are not a prime member , you may not be able to open it.
Then I suggest you can also see the 2nd article.

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I did some (re)search on Electrozers and observed that all our gigascale green hydrogen investments are counting on some tech partner for Electrolyzers that they need at commerical scale.

Reliance partnered with Stiesdal for HydroGen Electrolyzer technology
Adani - Cavendish Renewables
L&T - HydrogenPro
Linde - ITM Power
GAIL - Maire Tecnimont
IOC and NTPC - Inviting bids for partnership

Electrolyzers are a major cost element in hydrogen production. All these partnerships can be researched from an investment perspective. Local manufacturing and vendor ecosystem might provide some proxies in India.

Another area that one can study is a comparison of different electrolysis techs (ALK, PEM, SOEC, etc.) There need not be a winner here but some patterns will emerge as the tech matures and economy of scale pans out.

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The Govt is coming with a 20k PLI scheme for electrolysers. Import duty on electrolysers are to drastically reduced.
According to the Govt, The Green Hydrogen Mission is expected to attract Rs 8 lakh crore of investment to produce 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum in the next five years.

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At around 12:20 in this video, Mr Nitin Gadkari says India is number one in manufacturing electrolyzers. I am thoroughly confused with this given that Adani, Ambanis and every other player is looking out of India for tech partnerships for electrolyzers.

Does anyone understand this pls?

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In my view the minister is well informed on renewables.
When we say electrolyser manufacturing in India , it could be both indigenous & foreign collaboration.
The world has started serious work and planning on electrolyser since last couple of years.

So whatever electrolyser capacity is being talked about in the video and India’s position in the world is the pipeline production capacity by 2025 which have already gone in to stream and the estimated installed capacity can be reached in just 2 years from now.
India with 8GW capacity is no 1 among a total of 26 GW in the whole world by 2025 as reported by this foreign Analyst.
The manufacturers names in India is listed and status indicated. It appears to be correct as far as my knowledge is concerned.

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/india-emerging-as-key-base-for-hydrogen-electrolyser-production-with-8gw-by-2025/2-1-1305267

India’s electrolyzer manufacturing capacity will reach 8 GW per year by 2025, says Rystad – pv magazine India.

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Screenshot from 2023-01-18 09-40-09

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John Cockerill also in electrolyser

Perhaps , there could be another dozen names in coming days within Electrolyser / components manufacturing l!
Electrolysers could be in different capacities mini, micro, large, mega etc ranging from 60KW to 120 MW, though the largest single unit produced so far is of 24 MW capacity. one can have multiple units to meet large amount of Hydrogen requirement. Hydrogen is renewable energy which can be stored and used in various ways as discussed earlier at length in previous posts. Renewables like solar wind can not be stored. But then by electrolyser , we can convert solar wind energy to Green hydrogen which can used in different ways or can be stored and used later to produce electricity

let us come to electrolyser capacity.

1 KW= 1000 W
1MW= 1000 KW
1GW= 1000 MW

Our domestic house we live in normally is of 10 KW capacity.
There are small scale industries, MSME’s commercial business houses , large factories power requirement could vary widely depending upon it size.

Apart from Mega renewable power plants/ Electrolysers being planned by Reliance, adani , L&T, etc we have large factories , small scale industries planning to have small size electrolysers .
For example, when Green hydrogen becomes affordable,
if we look at future, even domestic houses can have roof top solar panel to produce electricity and have electrolyser to produce Green hydrogen by excess solar power in day time. Green hydrogen can be stored and can be used for domestic gas or to fuel your car. or even Green hydrogen can be converted back to electricity by a Fuel Cell in the night to produce electricity when solar power is not available.

So far as Mega electrolysers production capacity is concerned , there are only 6-7 manufacturers as mentioned in the article, though there could be many more to produce mini , micro, large catagories.
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/india-emerging-as-key-base-for-hydrogen-electrolyser-production-with-8gw-by-2025/2-1-1305267

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Most of what he says is incorrect, Ohmium does not have 90% market share and Mirai is not a green hydrogen vehicle, it is just a regular fuel cell car.

Having said that, there is an huge opportunity for Green hydrogen in India in refineries and fertilizer companies for replacing grey hydrogen and producing green ammonia and helping transit India to net-zero. The use of green hydrogen in energy storage or personal mobility is still work in progress, not efficient and one needs to see how the technology evolves !!

I don’t have data on market share of Ohmium electrolyser. So no comment.

With regards to Mirai or to that extent any Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car - there is no seperate design for Green hydrogen Fuel Cell car or Blue hydrogen fuel cell car. All fuel cell cars are designed to run on hydrogen fuel as input to be stored in the car’s fuel tank- irrespective of the origin of Hydrogen.
So Mirai fuel cell car can run any hydrogen whether green , blue or grey.

if Mirai gets hydrogen , which is produced from renewable sources solar/wind and electrolyser , then we say that this car uses Green hydrogen.

On board production of Hydrogen in the car by help of electrolyser from water and a fuel cell to produce electricity is something more complicated and still remains a concept.

The other existing car design which is also popular in many countries is a standard Hydrogen car with IC engine which will burn hydrogen just like petrol diesel engine - but the car fuel tank will be filled with hydrogen in place of petrol diesel - and the combustion product here is only Water/ steam which could drip on roads. But zero exhaust emissions when compared with diesel petrol engine .
This kind of hydrogen car is less expensive than FCEV. FCEV does not have any combustion process.

One naive question:
Electrolysis is the electro chemical process of splitting Water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen.
I read that to produce 1 kg of hydrogen, 9 kg of Water is required.
Will green hydrogen production lead to water crisis in India and World?

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Technically speaking hydrogen can be produced from sea water through salt(sea)water electrolysis method. But business viability may be one of the reasons, companies are not adopting to this broadly. However, if regulations kick-in, they will fall in line.

https://www.sustainability-times.com/low-carbon-energy/hydrogen-for-clean-energy-could-be-produced-from-seawater/#:~:text=Current%20research%20suggests%20that%20saltwater,worsening%20the%20global%20freshwater%20shortage.

Balu forge, naya energy - new mobility world

An idea, those are interested do own research. Interestingly prices is increased in last few days

Good question, and interesting too!

The moment we speak about electrolyser and electrolysis of water , the question is water consumption would lead to Water scarcity ?

Let us look at these aspects of Green hydrogen production.

(1) When you electrolyse water, you get Hydrogen and oxygen. How do you use hydrogen- so called Green hydrogen ?

(2) For electricity power generation, along with electrolyser you need a Fuel cell which is just the reverse of electrolysis. We know that in a Fuel cell , hydrogen combines with oxygen to produce electricity and the bye product is water which can be re-circulated to split it back to hydrogen.
Needless to say that the electrolyser is run by solar /wind power which involves no water consumption !

(3) If Green Hydrogen is used as fuel for mobility …Automobiles/ ships / trains - For FCEV …Again fuel cell converts hydrogen to water which can either be captured or let out…water comes back in to system .
If hydrogen is used as fuel for IC engine, hydrogen is burnt in oxygen and the products of combustion is water. no other emissions

(4) If Green Hydrogen is used as domestic kitchen fuel , it produce only and only water unlike LPG/ PNG which produce carbon dioxide along with water /steam.

(5) If Green Hydrogen is used for fertiliser plant or other industries for different chemical synthesis , perhaps you may not get back water…

But then these cases , Even if you don’t Use green hydrogen ( electrolysis of water ) , what is the current/conventional/ traditional method of getting Hydrogen…??? Grey hydrogen , Blue hydrogen -From natural gas and coal - both requires huge amount of water for steam reforming and hydrogen synthesis and a lot of carbon emissions are the bye products, which are responsible for accumulation of Green house gas leading to Global warming , climate change apart from affecting health of all living beings in the earth .

(6) Let us assume for the time being that we don’t go for Green hydrogen for electric power generation ? let us continue with thermal power plants- How does the thermal power plants run ???
Coal is used to heat water to produce steam and steam is allowed to drive a turbine generator which produce electricity! so it requires huge amount of water , but the bye products are dozens of toxic gases including Carbon emissions

(7) Today, All Industries , thermal power plants, Automobiles, ships , trains , aeroplanes - Diesel Petrol CNG LPG - kitchen cooking …every human activity produce carbon emission.

so going by the maths done by experts all over the world, Green hydrogen production will have minimal affects on water consumption - and earth surface consists of 3/4 water…and desalination is also an option though.

In any case , when “climate change” is the greatest concern and if it is arrested, the normal water balance of the earth would be maintained by normal evaporation and condensation process ( call it normal rain ).

As of now , we dont seem to have another sustainable alternative other than Green hydrogen for the future energy needs .

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