New Delhi: India’s largest oil company IOC Will make the country’s first ‘Green’ hydrogen’ plant at Mathura Refinery, as it aims to prepare for the future catering to the growing demand for both oily and cleaner forms of energy.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has charted a strategic growth path that aims to focus on its core refining and fuel marketing businesses over the next 10 years while making major inroads into petrochemicals, hydrogen and electric mobility, said its president Shrikant Madhav Vaidya.
He told PTI in an interview that the company will not set up captive power plants in all its future refinery and petrochemical expansion projects and will instead use 250 MW of electricity generated from renewable sources like solar power.
“We have a wind power project in Rajasthan. We intend to channel that electricity to our Mathura refinery and use that electricity to produce absolutely green hydrogen through electrolysis,” he said.
This will be the country’s first green hydrogen unit. Previously, projects have been announced to produce ‘gray hydrogen’ using fossil fuels such as natural gas.
Hydrogen is the latest buzzword to meet the world’s energy needs. Hydrogen itself is a clean fuel, but its manufacture is energy-intensive and contains carbon byproducts.
Brown hydrogen is created through coal gasification while the process of producing gray hydrogen throws away carbon waste. Blue hydrogen uses carbon capture and storage for the greenhouse gases produced in the manufacture of gray hydrogen.
Green hydrogen production – the ultimate clean hydrogen resource – uses renewable energy to make hydrogen fuel.
“Mathura has been chosen on the basis of its proximity to the TTZ (Taj Trapezium Zone),” Vaidya said, adding that green hydrogen would be used to use carbon-emitting fuel that converts crude to petrol and oil at the refinery. Such as are used to process into value-added products. diesel.
He said that all the expansion projects would use grid power, preferably green energy, to meet the energy requirements.
“We’ve got several expansions down the line that are already approved. We won’t have a captive power plant and will use power from the grid, preferably green energy. This will help decarbonize some of the manufacturing,” he said .
IOC’s refinery expansion plans include increasing the capacity of units at Panipat in Haryana and Barauni in Bihar and setting up a new facility near Chennai.
“We are going to add 25 million tonnes to our refining capacity by 2023-24. Now we are 80.5 million tonnes including CPCL, we are going to be 105 million tonnes,” he said.
Vaidya said the IOC is moving forward with research on carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies – the space where it is seeking global collaboration to meet its Paris climate goals.
He said that hydrogen will be the fuel of the future. IOC is planning to set up several hydrogen production units on a pilot basis.
This includes a project at Gujarat Refinery to produce finite purity hydrogen of 99.99999 percent for hydrogen fuel cell buses. “Today, 50 buses in Delhi are run on hydrogen-spiked compressed natural gas, or H-CNG, which has 18 per cent hydrogen content,” he said adding that the hydrogen fuel cell buses would be put into service on the iconic routes of Vadodara-Sabarmati and Vadodara-Statue of Unity, Kvedia.
“About 15 fuel-cell powered buses, completely with India-made fuel cells, are expected to run in the second half of 2021. Since hydrogen will be required to run these buses, the IOC is setting up a plant, which will be operated by the IOC. The capacity can be anywhere between 200 tonnes and 400 tonnes per day,” he said.
Petroleum refining and marketing will continue to be IOC’s core business with much petrochemicals integration. In addition, gas will play a bigger role and the firm will have a presence in the electric mobility space through charging stations at petrol pumps and a planned battery manufacturing unit.
According to the forecasts of various agencies, the Indian fuel demand is expected to reach 400-450 million tonnes by 2040, as against 250 million tonnes at present. This gives ample room for all forms of energy to coexist, he said, adding that demand growth makes it imperative to drive refining expansion as well as expand the footprint in compressed natural gas, LNG, biodiesel and ethanol.
Vaidya said that IOC has already started battery swapping stations in many cities. The firm has already installed 286 charging stations across the country, including swapping stations, which will be increased to 3,000 EV charging stations over the next few years.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has charted a strategic growth path that aims to focus on its core refining and fuel marketing businesses over the next 10 years while making major inroads into petrochemicals, hydrogen and electric mobility, said its president Shrikant Madhav Vaidya.
He told PTI in an interview that the company will not set up captive power plants in all its future refinery and petrochemical expansion projects and will instead use 250 MW of electricity generated from renewable sources like solar power.
“We have a wind power project in Rajasthan. We intend to channel that electricity to our Mathura refinery and use that electricity to produce absolutely green hydrogen through electrolysis,” he said.
This will be the country’s first green hydrogen unit. Previously, projects have been announced to produce ‘gray hydrogen’ using fossil fuels such as natural gas.
Hydrogen is the latest buzzword to meet the world’s energy needs. Hydrogen itself is a clean fuel, but its manufacture is energy-intensive and contains carbon byproducts.
Brown hydrogen is created through coal gasification while the process of producing gray hydrogen throws away carbon waste. Blue hydrogen uses carbon capture and storage for the greenhouse gases produced in the manufacture of gray hydrogen.
Green hydrogen production – the ultimate clean hydrogen resource – uses renewable energy to make hydrogen fuel.
“Mathura has been chosen on the basis of its proximity to the TTZ (Taj Trapezium Zone),” Vaidya said, adding that green hydrogen would be used to use carbon-emitting fuel that converts crude to petrol and oil at the refinery. Such as are used to process into value-added products. diesel.
He said that all the expansion projects would use grid power, preferably green energy, to meet the energy requirements.
“We’ve got several expansions down the line that are already approved. We won’t have a captive power plant and will use power from the grid, preferably green energy. This will help decarbonize some of the manufacturing,” he said .
IOC’s refinery expansion plans include increasing the capacity of units at Panipat in Haryana and Barauni in Bihar and setting up a new facility near Chennai.
“We are going to add 25 million tonnes to our refining capacity by 2023-24. Now we are 80.5 million tonnes including CPCL, we are going to be 105 million tonnes,” he said.
Vaidya said the IOC is moving forward with research on carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies – the space where it is seeking global collaboration to meet its Paris climate goals.
He said that hydrogen will be the fuel of the future. IOC is planning to set up several hydrogen production units on a pilot basis.
This includes a project at Gujarat Refinery to produce finite purity hydrogen of 99.99999 percent for hydrogen fuel cell buses. “Today, 50 buses in Delhi are run on hydrogen-spiked compressed natural gas, or H-CNG, which has 18 per cent hydrogen content,” he said adding that the hydrogen fuel cell buses would be put into service on the iconic routes of Vadodara-Sabarmati and Vadodara-Statue of Unity, Kvedia.
“About 15 fuel-cell powered buses, completely with India-made fuel cells, are expected to run in the second half of 2021. Since hydrogen will be required to run these buses, the IOC is setting up a plant, which will be operated by the IOC. The capacity can be anywhere between 200 tonnes and 400 tonnes per day,” he said.
Petroleum refining and marketing will continue to be IOC’s core business with much petrochemicals integration. In addition, gas will play a bigger role and the firm will have a presence in the electric mobility space through charging stations at petrol pumps and a planned battery manufacturing unit.
According to the forecasts of various agencies, the Indian fuel demand is expected to reach 400-450 million tonnes by 2040, as against 250 million tonnes at present. This gives ample room for all forms of energy to coexist, he said, adding that demand growth makes it imperative to drive refining expansion as well as expand the footprint in compressed natural gas, LNG, biodiesel and ethanol.
Vaidya said that IOC has already started battery swapping stations in many cities. The firm has already installed 286 charging stations across the country, including swapping stations, which will be increased to 3,000 EV charging stations over the next few years.
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