National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) has awarded a standalone fuel-cell based Green Hydrogen Microgrid Project at Simhadri in Andhra Pradesh, informed the Ministry of Power on Wednesday.
According to the Power Ministry, this will be India‘s first green hydrogen-based energy storage project and one of the world’s largest.
”NTPC has awarded a project of standalone Fuel-Cell based Micro-grid with hydrogen production using electrolyser in NTPC Guest House at Simhadri (near Visakhapatnam),” a power ministry stated.
The Ministry said it would be a precursor to large scale hydrogen energy storage projects and would be useful for studying and deploying multiple microgrids in various off-grid and strategic locations of the country.
The hydrogen would be produced using the advanced 240 kW Solid Oxide Electrolyser by taking input power from the nearby Floating Solar project.
“The hydrogen produced during sunshine hours would be stored at high pressure and would be electrified using a 50 kW Solid Oxide Fuel Cell. The system would work in standalone mode from 5 pm in the evening to 7 am in the morning,” it added.
This unique project configuration is designed in-house by NTPC.
“It is a unique project for India and would open doors for decarbonising the far-off regions of the country like Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir etc., hitherto dependent on diesel generators,” it said.
The project is in-line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for becoming carbon neutral by 2070 and making Ladakh a carbon-neutral territory.
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The company will install the electrolyser at one of its gas processing plants in the country. While the firm was initially looking at using natural gas as feedstock for producing what is known as blue hydrogen, it may look at using renewable energy to split water to produce oxygen and green hydrogen.
There is no doubt that hydrogen will offer us the possibility of lowering our carbon emissions but its large scale utilisation will not happen unless there is a direct support from the government.