GAIL Contract To Build India’s largest PEM based Green Hydrogen Project

GAIL Limited has awarded a contract to set up one of the largest Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Electrolyser to produce 4.3 MT Hydrogen a day in India. In tandem with the National Hydrogen Mission, the renewable energy-powered project would be installed in Guna, Madhya Pradesh. So designed as to produce around 4.3 Metric Tons of Hydrogen per day (10 MW capacity) with a purity of about 99.999 Volume %, the project is scheduled to be commissioned by November 2023, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas on May 12. We understand power to run the electrolyser would come from a solar installation locally.

The state owned largest gas transporting and marketing firm has set its eyes on the target, commencing India’s first-of-it’s-kind project of mixing Hydrogen into Natural Gas system. Hydrogen blended natural gas is being supplied to one of GAIL’s Joint Venture (JV) company with HPCL- Avantika Gas Limited (AGL), a City Gas Distribution (CGD) company operating in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Till date, GAIL has been successful in blending up to 2% (v/v) hydrogen in natural gas in the CGD network, claimed the press release.

The latest buzz for clean energy, Hydrogen can be produced in three different ways – through coal gasification (brown hydrogen), deriving it from methane in natural gas (blue hydrogen) and using renewable energy to split water in an electrolyser to produce green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is the cleanest of all with zero carbon emission. The cost and other details of the project are conspicuously missing from the press release.

GAIL has been successful in blending up to 2 per cent hydrogen in natural gas in the CGD network. The 10 MW capacity is one of the largest in the country and double the size of the one announced by NTPC.

For India to achieve the target of raising the share of natural gas to 15 per cent gas usage by 2030 from the current 6.2 per cent, gas consumption has to rise three-and-a-half times to 600 million standard cubic meters per day.