L&T sets up green hydrogen plant at Hazira

‘Company is in talks with steel, cement makers for similar units’

Engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro, which commissioned its first green hydrogen plant at its complex here in Gujarat, is in talks with a dozen companies for setting up similar units, a company official said on Saturday.

As part of its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, L&T is planning to achieve water neutrality by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2040, making green hydrogen an integral part of its clean fuel adoption policy.

In order to supply green hydrogen, the company is in talks with major refineries both in the government and private sectors. The company is also in touch with a dozen companies, operating in the steel and cement space, and refineries for setting up similar hydrogen plants, a senior company official said.

"We decided to set up this green hydrogen plant at our facility and use that hydrogen as blended source of energy for our industrial facility here in Hazira," the company's wholetime director and senior executive vice-president (Energy) Subramanian Sarma told reporters here.

This project, which started about seven months ago, was implemented on a fast-track basis. This is the first green hydrogen plant in India and is model that the company wanted to project because of its modern equipment, digital and automation system.

"This particular plant is upwards of about ₹25 crore but it has incorporated fire fighting system, digital automation and this is a first-of-its kind plant in India and we do believe that there will be much larger and bigger capacities that we will be doing; and as we scale up, the per unit cost will also keep dropping," the company's senior vice-president and head of the Green Energy Business Derek M. Shah said.

The plant will produce 45 kg of green hydrogen daily, which will be used for captive consumption at the company's Hazira manufacturing complex The plant is designed for an electrolyser capacity of 800 kW comprising both alkaline and PEM technologies and will be powered by a rooftop solar plant of 990kW peak DC capacity and a 500 kWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).