Indian Oil Corporation will be setting up ‘green hydrogen’ plants at the Mathura and Panipat refineries by 2024. This is done to replace carbon-emitting units as it sees the just announced green hydrogen policy as watershed in the country’s energy transition that will help cut costs.
Director for Research and Development, IOC, SSV Ramakumar said the new policy will help cut cost of manufacturing green hydrogen by 40-50 per cent. The policy will be the single biggest enabler by the state for production of green hydrogen. Oil refinaries, fertilizer plants and steel units use hydrogen as process fuel to produce finished products.
In refineries, hydrogen is used to remove excess Sulphur from petrol and diesel. This hydrogen presently is produced from fossil fuels such as natural as or naphtha and results in carbon emissions.
Indian Oil has plans to replace grey hydrogen with green hydrogen by using electricity from renewable energy sources like solar or wind power, to split water into 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom through electrolysis.
India is targeting 15 GW of electrolier-making capacity and is considering production-linked incentives to encourage local manufacturing.
