GAIL to build India's largest green hydrogen plant to supplement natural gas business

State-owned GAIL (India) Ltd will build India's largest green hydrogen-making plant as it looks to supplement its natural gas business with carbon-free fuel.

Speaking at India Energy Forum by CERAWeek, GAIL chairman and managing director Manoj Jain said the company has floated a global tender to procure an electrolyser.

"It will take 12-14 months to put the plant," he said adding the company has finalised 2-3 sites for the unit including one at Vijaipur in Madhya Pradesh.

Jain said the plant planned is for 10MW capacity, the largest announced so far in the country.

State electricity producer NTPC has announced a 5MW green hydrogen plant.

"We have on a pilot basis started mixing hydrogen in natural gas in one of the cities," he said adding the company is testing for idea mix percentage before scaling it up.

The hydrogen Gail plans to produce can be sold to fertiliser units which as per government mandate are required to use hydrogen as fuel, he said.

India's largest gas transporting and marketing company is also looking at newer avenues to boost business including pushing for use of LNG as fuel in long haul trucking.

"For India to achieve the target of raising the share of natural gas in the energy basket to 15 per cent gas usage by 2030 from current 6.2 per cent, gas consumption has to rise three and half times to 600 million standard cubic meters per day. And for this to happen, all sectors have to jump in," he said.

The government, he said, is pushing for use of LNG as fuel transport and mining sector.

"We as the industry will set up 20 LNG dispensing stations on Golden Quadirateal by March 2022 and 500-600 outlets in 3-4 years. The ultimate target is 1,000 LNG stations," he said.