Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries showcased a truck running on hydrogen, the cleanest known fuel, whose tail emissions are only water and oxygen, at the India Energy Week here on February 6. , Photo Credit: Reuters
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries showcased a truck running on hydrogen, the cleanest known fuel, whose tail emissions are only water and oxygen, at the India Energy Week here on February 6.
The Ashok Leyland-manufactured truck with two large hydrogen cylinders was placed in a hall next to the main venue where Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the three-day event themed around ‘Development, Cooperation, Transition’.
A display near the truck said it was “India’s first H2ICE technology truck on the road.” The truck has “nearly zero emissions” when it uses hydrogen as fuel in place of a conventional diesel or even the more recently introduced liquefied natural gas (LNG).
“The performance of the H2ICE vehicle is comparable to that of a diesel ICE,” it said.
H2 is the formula for Hydrogen and ICE stands for Internal Combustion Engine.
India is increasingly pushing the use of hydrogen, which can be produced by splitting water using electricity. The use of electricity generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind qualifies it to be green hydrogen.
Hydrogen finds wide applicability, from refineries to steel plants and fertilizer units, where it can replace hydrocarbons. Hydrogen can also be used as a fuel in automobiles but the current cost of manufacturing it is very high. But that hasn’t stopped companies from investing in hydrogen manufacturing.
Last month, billionaire Gautam Adani’s group announces plan for hydrogen truck,
In January, Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), part of a diversified portfolio of companies, entered into a partnership with Ashok Leyland, India and Ashok Leyland to launch a pilot project to develop Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Truck (FCET) for mining logistics and transportation. Signed an agreement for. Ballard Power, Canada.
The hydrogen-powered mining truck will weigh 55 tons, have three hydrogen tanks, have a working range of 200 kilometers, and be powered by Ballard’s 120 kW PEM fuel cell technology.
The Adani Group had earlier announced that it plans to invest over $50 billion in green hydrogen and associated ecosystems over the next 10 years, which equates to a capacity of up to 3 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually.
Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance is also forging a green path, investing in the entire hydrogen ecosystem along with renewable energy power generation as part of its decarbonisation plans.
Reliance is investing ₹6 lakh crore ($80 billion) in several green energy projects in Gujarat as part of the company’s increasingly ambitious decarbonisation drive.
It will invest ₹5 lakh crore over a period of 10 to 15 years for a 100 GW renewable-energy power plant and development of a green-hydrogen ecosystem. It has started the process of finding land for 100 GW renewable energy power projects in Kutch, Banaskantha and Dholera and has requested 4,50,000 acres of land in Kutch.
The company will spend an additional ₹60,000 crore to set up ‘new energy manufacturing’, which includes solar modules, electrolysers, batteries for energy storage and fuel cells.
Rs 25,000 crore will be invested in existing projects and new ventures over the next three to five years.
Reliance 2021 first spoke of a multi-billion investment plan spanning renewable energy, storage and hydrogen, which it claims will be the world’s largest green energy device ‘giga-complex’ and aims for 100GW capacity.
The investment made over three years will take Reliance to a net-zero emission position by 2035.
In a demonstration with the hydrogen truck, Reliance said that the use of hydrogen saves 20% of fuel operating expenses as compared to diesel ICE vehicles. This results in a 10-15% noise reduction over diesel ICE vehicles.
The Adani Group plans to invest $20 billion over the next decade in renewable energy generation and component manufacturing, with the aim of becoming the “least expensive producer of green electronics anywhere in the world”.
It also intends to triple its renewable-electricity generation capacity over the next four years, become a green-hydrogen producer, power all of its data centers with renewable energy by 2030, and clean its ports by 2025. Achieves zero emissions, and allocates more. 75% of capital expenditure by 2025 on green technologies.