- It will be India’s 1st Green Hydrogen Unit. Previous projects have been announced to produce ‘green hydrogen’ using fossil fuels such as natural gas.
- Green Hydrogen will replace the carbon-emitting fuels used in Mathura refinery to process crude oil into value-added products like petrol and diesel.
- Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced by splitting water by electrolysis. The process to make green hydrogen is powered by renewable energy sources such as wind or solar.
- IOC has set a vision to focus on Petrochemicals, hydrogen and electric mobility in the next 10 years.
Green Steps taken by IOC
IOC is taking several steps to meet its Paris climate goals.
i.It will not install captive power plants in all its future refineries, instead it will use 250 MW of electricity it produces from renewable sources.
- It intends to use power generated from its Wind Power Project in Rajasthan to power the Mathura refinery. This will also be used to produce green hydrogen through electrolysis.
- IOC is also planning to set up several hydrogen production units on a pilot basis.
- It intends to set up a project at Gujarat refinery to produce finite purity hydrogen of 99.99 percent for hydrogen fuel cell buses. Its capacity will range between 200-400 Tonnes per day.
ii.IOC’s expansion projects will use grid electricity, preferably green power to meet the energy requirements.
Hydrogen Fuel
It is a clean fuel which is being increasingly adopted by countries to meet the world’s energy needs.
- Other types of Hydrogen fuel are – Brown hydrogen (created through coal gasification), Blue Hydrogen (produced through Carbon Capture Usage & Storage), Grey Hydrogen (Formed from splitting of Hydrogen & CO2).
- IOC is planning to add 25 Million Tonnes (MT) of Refining Capacity by the year 2023-24. At present it stands at 80 MT and is set to increase to 105 MT.
- India’s fuel demand is expected to increase to 400-450 MT by 2040 (as against 250 MT now).
Recent Related News:
i.On October 29, 2020, IISc and the Research and Development(R&D) Centre of IndianOil Corporation Limited (IOCL) signed an MoU to develop and demonstrate biomass gasification-based hydrogen generation technology to produce fuel cell-grade hydrogen at an economical price.
About Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)
Chairman – Shrikant Madhav Vaidya
Headquarters – New Delhi
