Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T), state-owned player Indian Oil Corporation (IndianOil) and renewables major ReNew Power have formed a joint venture to develop green hydrogen projects across the country.
The trio signed a binding term sheet for the formation of the joint venture, aimed at developing the nascent green hydrogen sector in India, L&T said.
IndianOil and L&T also signed a separate deal to form a joint venture to manufacture and sell electrolysers to be used in the production of green hydrogen.
L&T said the joint venture will build on the group's own design and execution capabilities, IndianOil’s expertise in refining and ReNew’s ability in “offering and developing utility-scale renewable energy solutions”.
Indian companies are aggressively scaling up their hydrogen capabilities, with two of the country’s largest private-sector giants — Reliance Industries and the Adani Group — promising to spend billions of dollars on future hydrogen and renewable projects.
By 2050, nearly 80% of India’s hydrogen is projected to be ‘green’ – produced by renewable electricity and electrolysis — L&T claimed.
The joint venture aims to enable India’s transition to a greener economy that increasingly manufactures hydrogen via electrolysis powered by renewable energy, L&T added.
The Indian government earlier this year launched a policy aimed at boosting the production of green hydrogen and green ammonia to help the nation become a global hub.
L&T chief executive SN Subrahmanyan commented on this: “India plans to rapidly march ahead in its decarbonisation efforts and production of green hydrogen is key in this endeavour.
“The IndianOil-L&T-ReNew joint venture will focus on developing green hydrogen projects in a time-bound manner to supply green hydrogen at an industrial scale.”
Subrahmanyan termed the partnership as “a significant step in India’s quest for alternative energy”.
The joint venture players said the grouping will “rapidly build, expand and bring in economies of scale to make green hydrogen a cost-effective energy carrier and a chemical feedstock for many sectors”.
IndianOil chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said that, initially, the partnership will focus on green hydrogen projects at its Mathura and Panipat refineries.
“While the usage of hydrogen in the mobility sector will take its due time, however, the refineries will be the pivot around which India’s green hydrogen revolution will materialise in a substantial way,” he said.
