L&T sets up green hydrogen plant at Hazira; in talks with steel, cement makers for similar units

New Delhi: Engineering and construction giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T), which commissioned its first green hydrogen plant at its complex here in Gujarat, is in talks with a dozen companies for setting up similar units, a company official said on Saturday.

As part of its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, L&T is planning to achieve water neutrality by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2040, making green hydrogen an integral part of its clean fuel adoption policy.

In order to supply green hydrogen, the company is in talks with major refineries both in the government and private sector. The company is also in touch with a dozen companies, operating in steel and cement space, and refineries for setting up similar hydrogen plants, a senior company official said.

"We decided to set up this green hydrogen plant at our facility and use that hydrogen as blended source of energy for our industrial facility here in Hazira," the company's Whole-time Director and Senior Executive Vice-President (Energy) Subramanian Sarma told reporters here.

Hydrogen is one of the main building blocks, he said, adding that he believes that the world in the next 10-15 years time will have a very significant contribution of the energy demand not in just India but also globally.

This project which started about seven months ago was implemented on a very fast-track basis. This first green hydrogen plant in India is a kind of model that the company want to project because it has modern equipment, digital and automation system and this is the way forward.

"This particular plant is upwards of about Rs 25 crore but it has incorporated fire fighting system, digital automation and this is first-of-its kind plant in India and we do believe that there will be much larger and bigger capacities that we will be doing and as we scale up the per unit cost which will also keep dropping," the company's Senior Vice-President and head of Green Energy Business Derek M Shah said.

The plant will produce 45 kg of green hydrogen daily, which will be used for captive consumption at the company's Hazira manufacturing complex.

The plant is designed for an electrolyser capacity of 800 kW comprising both alkaline and PEM technologies and will be powered by a rooftop solar plant of 990kW peak DC capacity and a 500 kWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

As part of the first phase of the project 380 kW Alkaline electrolyser has been installed, while the 420 kW PEM electrolyser along with solar plant capacity augmentation to 1.6 MW peak DC, will be part of future expansion.

(With PTI inputs)

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