Engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) commissioned a new green hydrogen plant at Hazira in Gujarat. The development comes five months after the company inked a joint venture with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and ReNew Power for the production of green hydrogen. L&T and IOC had also inked a separate joint venture for the production of electrolysers.
The plant will produce 45 kg of green hydrogen daily, which will be used for captive consumption in the company’s Hazira manufacturing complex.
The green hydrogen plant is designed for an electrolyser capacity of 800 kW comprising both alkaline (380 kW) and polymer electrolyte membrane (420 kW) technologies. It will be powered by a rooftop solar plant of 990kW peak DC capacity and a 500kWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
As part of its ESG commitments, L&T has pledged to achieve water neutrality by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2040. Making Green Hydrogen an integral part of its clean fuel adoption policy.
What is Green Hydrogen?
Green hydrogen is hydrogen generated by renewable energy or from low-carbon power. Green hydrogen has significantly lower carbon emissions than grey hydrogen, which is produced by steam reforming of natural gas, which makes up the bulk of the hydrogen market. Green hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water is less than 0.1% of total hydrogen production.
t may be used to decarbonize sectors which are hard to electrify, such as steel and cement production, and thus help to limit climate change.
The high cost of production is the main factor behind the low use of green hydrogen. Nonetheless, the hydrogen market is expected to grow, with some forecasts of the cost of hydrogen production falling from $6/kg in 2015 to around $2/kg by 2025. In 2020, major European companies announced plans to switch their truck fleets to hydrogen power.
Green hydrogen can be blended into existing natural gas pipelines, and also used to produce green ammonia, the main constituent of fertilizer production. It is suggested by hydrogen industry bodies that green ammonia will be cost-competitive with ammonia produced conventionally (gray ammonia) by 2030.