After three months of tie-up between Belgium’s John Cockerill and Greenco, the company has now finalized for 50:50 joint venture for setting up two alkaline electrolyzer factories of a high volume of a gigawatt each in India in the coming 12 to 18 months. This deal is strategically driven to make the availability of hydrogen at a lower cost to industries. With an estimation of $500 million investment, this facility is expected to come out on the east coast and as per people associated and known in this deal, it will be one of the world’s largest after China till date.
GreenKo ZeroC (GKC) is a well-known subsidiary of the Greenko Group and Jon Cockerill is an established and leading manufacturer & designer of high volume capacity alkaline electrolysers and both the companies have said to have signed the deal on Monday as said in the joint statement. This great deal of placing 2GW electrolyser factories is expected to potentially help India’s Liquefied Natural Gas overall imports by an approx of 8%.
As per the official data & analytics, India is currently 55% of LNG requirements from countries like Australia and Qatar and 85% of its natural gas requirements are met. With the recent price hike in natural gas prices relating to the Russia and Ukraine War, it is all known that the Brent crude prices has skyrocketed the market and jumped to an above of $130 barrel. Additionally, the price of LNG in the spot market has also hiked from $6 per million metrics.
India is a major and big fuel importer and these new initiatives in energy consumption and the transition has surely got bigger energy security threat, implications and issues like long-term price stability in the country.
Therefore to directly address this issue, Anil Chalamalasetty, Greenko’s CEO & MD has said that “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.”
This great business partnership with Greenko will help us to contribute and promote to India’s sub-continent emergence as a new green energy hub,” said Raphael Tilot, CEO of Renewables, John Cockerill. He further added that “The fight against climate change is part of our mission and as India and neighboring countries have big abundant natural resources, a large domestic market and the potential to cater to the growth of this market regionally and globally.”
Furthermore, Greenko is also planning to effectively use its 50GW/hr pumped mega hydroelectric energy storage capacity that will come up in Andhra Pradesh to provide the firm a reliable and most needed 24×7 green power supply to overcome and challenge the intermittent nature of wind and solar power generation.
Also, the setting up of giga factories will help in supplying electrolysers to Greenko’s 4 million tonnes of green ammonia plant that is strictly aimed to cater and abide to the fertilizer sector, and to provide help to other green hydrogen facilities as well such as industrial users like chemical complexes or refineries.
As per a report by TERI, in the year 2020, India’s over all hydrogen demand stood at 6 million tones for the year but a 5 fold jump to 28 MT by 2050 is expected to be seen, and it can go almost double of the current levels by the year 2030. 80 per cent of the overall hydrogen demand is also expected to be going green in nature with mega users like refining and chemical and fertilizing sectors being the two largest user groups which are currently dependent on the grey hydrogen produced from using the fossil fuels such as naptha and natural gas. Prices too are expected to get halve in the next coming decades. And sensing this big business opportunity and investment, big industry giants such as Adani Group and reliance industries are thinking of coming up with a firm and solid hydrogen strategy.
Credit Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/greenko-john-cockerill-to-set-up-2-electrolyser-giga-factories-for-green-hydrogen/articleshow/90784080.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst