green hydrogen: Greenko, John Cockerill to set up 2 electrolyser giga factories for green hydrogen

Three months after teaming up, Greenko Group and Belgium’s John Cockerill has finalised the terms of a 50:50 joint venture to set up a two akaline electrolyzer factories of a gigawatt each in India over the next 12 to 18 months to make the lowest cost hydrogen in the country for industrial users. The facility, likely to come up on the east coast with a planned $500 million investment, as per people in the know, will be one of the world’s largest, and the largest till date outside of China.

Greenko ZeroC (GZC), a subsidiary of Greenko Group and Jon Cockerill, a leading designer and manufacturer of high-capacity alkaline electrolyzers signed the agreement on Monday, both companies said in a joint statement. The 2 GW units can potentially help replacing 8% of India’s annual liquified natural gas (LNG) imports.

India currently imports 55% of its natural gas requirements from countries like Qatar, Australia and 85% of its total oil requirements. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has driven up fuel and food prices all over the world – Brent crude prices sky rocketed to above $130 barrel while price of LNG in the spot market jumped from $6 per million metric British thermal unit (mmbtu) in January 2021 to $30-38 range, breaking previous highs of $22 per mmbtu. For a major fuel importer like India, these initiatives in energy transition has bigger energy security implications and long term price stability.

“Greenko is working towards re-industrialization solutions for a low-carbon economy. We are partnering with a world-class technology partner in John Cockerill and will jointly develop large-scale green molecule projects in India, which will accelerate the creation of a hydrogen economy,” said Anil Chalamalasetty, Greenko’s CEO & MD.

Greenko plans to use its 50GW/hr pumped hydro energy storage capacity coming up in Andhra Pradesh to provide firm, reliable 24×7 green power and overcome the intermittent nature of wind and solar power generation. The gigafactories will supply electrolysers to Greenko’s 4 million tonnes of 1 million tonne per year green ammonia plant aimed to cater to the fertiliser sector, and to other green hydrogen facilities of industrial users like refineries or chemical complexes. The Gigafactory will include the full manufacturing electrolyser value chain including state of the art nickel coating and will produce electrolysers delivering H2 at 30 bars at the outlet at the highest purity level, the firms said in their joint statement on Monday.

Hyderabad based Greenko is backed by GIC Holdings of Singapore, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Japan’s ORIX Corp. It is the largest footprint of operating renewable assets across 15 states with a total capacity of 7.3 GWs.

“The fight against climate change is part of our mission, and this partnership with Greenko will enable us to contribute to India’s sub-continent emergence as a new green energy hub,” said Raphael Tilot, CEO Renewables, John Cockerill. “India and neighbouring countries have abundant natural resources, a large domestic market and the potential to cater to the growth of this market regionally and globally.”

Green hydrogen is defined as hydrogen produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using an electrolyzer which in turn is powered by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. This is different from both grey and blue hydrogen. Grey hydrogen is usually produced from methane split with steam into carbon – the main culprit for climate change – and hydrogen while the process to make blue hydrogen is similar to that of grey but it needs additional technologies necessary to capture the CO2 produced when hydrogen is split from methane or from coal and stored for long term.

According to a report by TERI, in 2020, India’s hydrogen demand stood at 6 million tonnes per year but is expected to see a 5 fold jump to 28 MT by 2050, and almost double the current levels by 2030. 80 per cent of the demand is expected to be green in nature with users like refining and fertiliser sectors being the two largest user groups which are currently relying on grey hydrogen produced from

fossil fuels such as natural gas or naphtha. Prices too are expected to halve in the next decade. Sensing the business opportunity, large Indian corporations like Adani Group, Reliance Industries, are firming up their hydrogen strategy.