Renewable energy companies look abroad for green hydrogen plants – Sustainability News

Renewable energy companies such as Hero Future Energies and Renew are looking to set up green hydrogen plants abroad, while others like Adani New Industries and Avaada Group are in talks with global companies for offtake of the new-age energy.

Hero Future Energies (HFE), part of Hero Group, is evaluating deployment of green hydrogen plants in the UK and the rest of Europe in association with its partners, said Srivatsan Iyer, global CEO, HFE.

HFE has a partnership with Tier 1 electrolyser OEMs such as Ohmium International to develop 1,000MW of green hydrogen production facilities in India, UK and rest of Europe. HFE is also evaluating use cases for green hydrogen,  working on projects to be commissioned in the immediate future, and looking at opportunities to scale these up, he said. HFE has established strategic partnerships with players throughout the green hydrogen value chain to operationalise projects, Iyer added.

Anothr renewables player, Adani New Industries (ANIL), is exploring international markets such as Europe, Japan and South Korea for offtake partners of green hydrogen and its derivatives, said a company spokesperson. ANIL is a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises.

Last year, Adani Global, Singapore, a step-down subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, announced a 50:50 joint venture with Kowa Holdings Asia, Singapore for sales and marketing of green ammonia, green hydrogen and its derivatives. The JV will concentrate on marketing of products in Japan, Taiwan and Hawaii, it said.

 ANIL is developing large-scale integrated green hydrogen and derivatives plants in Gujarat and is conducting feasibility and construction-readiness studies.

“The company’s focus includes development of downstream products like green ammonia,green methanol, and sustainable aviation fuel, tailored to cater to diverse sectors,” he said. ANIL is aiming to develop projects equivalent to 1 MMTPA (million metric tonne per annum) of green hydrogen and 5.6 MMTPA of green ammonia by 2030.

Another company planning an overseas plant is Renew, founded by Sumant Sinha. It has signed an exploratory framework agreement with Egypt to set up a green hydrogen plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. “We will continue making progress on green hydrogen through these and other initiatives,” Sinha had said in a recent interaction with FE.

Renew has also signed MoUs with the governments of Odisha, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh to set up green hydrogen plants . It is setting up a 0.5 million tonne plant in Odisha where it has tied up with Japanese power major JERA for 0.1million tonne offtake , industry sources said. It also has a JV with  Indian Oil and L&T to jointly set up a green hydrogen business.

Avaada Group, is planning  ~4 MTPA capacity of various types of green fuel, such as green ammonia, green methanol, e-methanol and sustainable aviation fuels. It is developing an integrated renewable energy, green hydrogen and green Ammonia plant of 0.5 MTPA capacity, including storage and related port infrastructure, in Odisha.

“ We are in active discussions with various offtakers, in India and globally. We are the producers and not consumers of green fuel. We are also working on various tenders for procurement of green fuels by different offtakers, both in India and globally,” said Vineet Mittal , chairman of Avaada group.

According to Vikram V, vice president, co-group head-corporate ratings at Icra the demand for green hydrogen is driven by policy support from the government, given the objective to reduce carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels.

The cost competitiveness of green hydrogen remains weak, with the cost of green hydrogen at $4-5 per kg against the cost of grey hydrogen at about $2 per kg. It is expected to improve going forward, with growing scale in manufacturing, technology improvements and operating efficiency gains, Vikram said.

“While a number of players have announced large plans in green hydrogen, the progress is gradual with pilot projects underway currently.” he said.